Microsoft has had a tough time getting customers and developers to continue using its Windows Mobile platform. We have seen some customers ditching the platform arguing that there are not enough apps for them to stick around. Developers on the other hand are not impressed with the moves Microsoft has taken to get people to the platform and are not willing to develop apps for the platform anymore.
To make things even worse for Microsoft, some big developers are ditching the platform which is something Microsoft doesn’t want to hear. Skype is one of the big companies that has announced that it will stop supporting Windows Phone 8 and 8.1 as from October this year. If you have a Windows 10 Mobile device, you are safe but if you own an older Windows Phone device, you better upgrade or you will be left out.
This announcement comes as Skype completes its rerouting from peer-to-peer communications to a cloud-based service. This is not good news for many people considering that 80% of all Windows devices are running Windows Phone 8.1 or older.
A statement from Skype reads in part, “we will continue to support Windows 7, 8, XP and Vista, Yosemite on Mac, iOS 8 and Android 4.03 operating systems.” It is strange to see Skype ditch Windows Phone considering that Microsoft owns Skype.
Going forward, we should expect more developers to ditch the platform as its market share keeps dropping.
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