Facebook has launched video calling for Messenger and with that they have made certain that Facebook and Skype’s old relationship is at an end. Skype was dumped by Facebook when it introduced the video calling feature based on its own technology.
Back in 2011, Microsoft and Facebook announced Skype powered video calling for Facebook’s desktop website. The feature received major fanfare and the companies announced they were working on video calling for Messenger. At the time, Mark Zuckerberg said that he had interests that aligned with Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer (in 2011). But it seems that the relationship that was on high and moving towards more and more integration is now coming to an end.
Facebook has not made any announcements regarding the partnership but Facebook’s introduction of voice calling in 2013 was an indication of the declining relationship between the two. Facebook also stopped using Skype for video calls for desktop a few months ago and replaced that with an in-house solution as well.
Facebook stated that the Skype-powered video calls required users to install an additional browser plugin so they developed a technology that would make the task much simpler and improve the call performance and video quality. It will also allow Facebook to update and make changes to the video chat more easily.
The cracks that led to the rupture don’t end here as Facebook stopped using Microsoft’s Bing for search results on its social network. Skype’s Community Manager mentioned that Facebook is making a number of changes regarding the way they connect their services with third parties. He gave a list of integrations that will no longer function in Skype starting May. This also includes the ability to message Facebook friends from within Skype which will no longer function.
Microsoft and Facebook had a long history together as Microsoft became a major investor in Facebook in 2007. Microsoft invested $240 million in the young social networking platform. Now that Facebook is tech giant they do not need to rely on others to provide services like search and calling functionalities. It also went against Facebook’s objective to prevent users from leaving the website for anything. Microsoft declined to comment on the matter but it’s clearly visible that the 8 year old partnership is now coming to an end.
Source GlobalNews, Benzinga