Microsoft is pulling its voice and video calling app ‘Skype’ from Windows Phone 7 and will stop working in the coming few weeks.
Microsoft announced the news through its support page and stated that users will no longer be able to log in and use Skype on their Windows 7 handsets.
The software giant is also advising users to get their existing subscription cancelled as they will no longer be able to access the app on their Windows 7 devices. Users can contact the customer support and claim for a Skype credit or subscription if in case they are eligible to get a refund.
Providing reason for the apps retirement, the Redmond based company said only the newest versions of Skype support “enhanced quality, better reliability [and] improved security,” and these versions of Skype cannot be ported to Windows Phone 7 either due to hardware restrictions or limited software support.
As the company wants everyone to experience the best Skype has to offer, it has decided to permanently retire all Skype apps for Windows Phone 7. The app, which has been removed from the store, will become non-functioning soon.
This means that the only option left with Windows Phone 7 users will be to change their handsets if they wish to use the popular video calling app.
“As the company wants everyone to experience the best Skype has to offer,” like, for example, the privacy advantage the old P2P model had over the new, NSA-approved, Cloud-based model.