Microsoft’s announcement of closing down Skype’s London office is the biggest news of the day in the technology blogosphere. The decision would cost laying off 400 employees which the company justifies is all in an effort to unify some engineering slots.
Skype’s base in London comprising of 400 people is shutting down but Microsoft will continue to maintain other offices of the subsidiary across the world. The change has reportedly the potential to affect a number of big Skype and Yammer roles.
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The live chatting application’s offices in Redmond, Palo Alto, Vancouver, and several locations in Europe will continue to be functional, however, the job cuts point out towards a change in office management strategy. An anonymous source told the Times that Skype’s leading team had been going through a makeover by its holding company.
Skype was an iconic voice-over chatting application that later turned into the most popular video chat desktop app. Since Skype was founded in 2003, it was bought by eBay (2005) and ultimately landed in the Microsoft’s hand in 2011. After the advent of smartphones, Skype still held the throne, but the increased competition in the messaging app has pushed it a little back. Google recently introduced Duo to one-up Skype, Line is already an equal competitor with over $400 million users.
