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Original Skype for Web developer here. I was part of the launch team who built the first version for this product in 2014[1]. Back then we supported Chrome, IE

Original Skype for Web developer here. I was part of the launch team who built the first version for this product in 2014[1]. Back then we supported Chrome, IE 9+, Safari and Firefox. Already we had internal debates to support Opera, but the decision was to focus on the largest browsers. For each browser, we had to add support in our standalone plugin, that was (and still is) required to install for audio/video calls. There was a small maintenance cost per browser, which was a bigger one whenever changes to the plug-in were made. I left Skype/Microsoft a long time ago and Microsoft announced in March they will drop support for Firefox[2]. I can only speculate, but it’s likely due to not wanting to pay the maintenance cost of this product on an ongoing basis. Not directly related story from building Skype for Web: a big internal battle those days was us vs the Edge team. We wanted Edge to ship the Skype plugin as default, making calls seamless for Edge users, not needing to install a plugin (we saw large drops in adoption due to this plugin). Chrome already did exactly this with Hangouts back in the day and we saw it as them eating our lunch. This was at the time of Steve Balmer’s Microsoft, where collaboration between different orgs was difficult and facing strong political headwind. We got nowhere with the Edge team, who wanted no dependencies and prioritised performance above anything like this - and also wanted to hit their own KPIs, which had nothing to do with Skype users preferring to use Edge. We reasoned, pleaded, argued, steamed, shouted names and even used the "C" argument ("but... but... but... even Chrome does it!"). No avail. So a separate plugin install it was, giving people zero incentive to use a Microsoft browser for a Microsoft product. The Edge team were pleased they did not have to cater for another dependency and their roadmap remained unchanged. We were frustrated and had little doubt which brodwser will keep gaining market share - being certain it will not be IE/Edge. Other not directly related story: a few years ago I wrote in detail my take on why Skype failed, here on HN. Read it on this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10927600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10927600 [1] https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2014/11/14/7219779/skype-for-web-beta-launch https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp... [2] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/microsofts-new-skype-for-web-client-an-early-taste-of-the-browser-monoculture/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/microsofts-new-skype...

cameronbrown 7y ago
> no dependencies and prioritised performance above anything Edge was in a weird position where it somehow looked fast but felt sluggish. A real shame it didn't work out though.
- zsrxx 7y ago
  It felt sluggish because they were forced to use the Metro UI toolkit. Had they used Win32, it would have blown Firefox and maybe Chrome out of the water.
- vezycash 7y ago
  It was sluggish and hung for no reason. It was super bare boned and still slow. So, if I installed the same number of extensions as I have on Firefox, it would grind to a halt. I guess that's what we get when they prioritize looks or design over functionality. The most annoying part for me was updates. They supposedly created Edge as a browser decoupled from the OS unlike Internet Explorer. They claimed that with Edge, they would be able to iterate quickly with regular updates - like Chrome. Yet, for 4 years, updating edge required a major OS update AFAIK.
pluma 7y ago
From talking to MS devs at conferences it feels like Skype is internally considered a dead end these days. Skype for Business (i.e. Lync) is already being replaced with Microsoft Teams. I'm not sure if MS is actually planning to replace Skype with anything or to just keep it around until nobody uses it anymore but all the recent updates felt rather half-hearted. It's still used for video calls in the consumer space apparently but I would guess that's an aging demographic as most kids and young adults seem to be using various mobile apps instead.
rjzzleep 7y ago
>> For each browser, we had to add support in our standalone plugin, that was (and still is) required to install for audio/video calls Wait Chrome doesn't need it right? I think the issue here is a codec no? There's even people that have hangouts working in pidgin because it just uses webrtc. I was trying to debug potential webrtc issues with skype web for pidgin. It's one thing to say we wanted to do this and that but I don't see you guys reaching out to browsers upstream at all to work on a solution that doesn't need a plug-in. Personally nowadays I just recommend everyone not to use Skype and many of my friends do the same despite being what we all used to use first.

cameronbrown 7y ago

> no dependencies and prioritised performance above anything Edge was in a weird position where it somehow looked fast but felt sluggish. A real shame it didn't work out though.

zsrxx 7y ago
It felt sluggish because they were forced to use the Metro UI toolkit. Had they used Win32, it would have blown Firefox and maybe Chrome out of the water.
vezycash 7y ago
It was sluggish and hung for no reason. It was super bare boned and still slow. So, if I installed the same number of extensions as I have on Firefox, it would grind to a halt. I guess that's what we get when they prioritize looks or design over functionality. The most annoying part for me was updates. They supposedly created Edge as a browser decoupled from the OS unlike Internet Explorer. They claimed that with Edge, they would be able to iterate quickly with regular updates - like Chrome. Yet, for 4 years, updating edge required a major OS update AFAIK.

pluma 7y ago

From talking to MS devs at conferences it feels like Skype is internally considered a dead end these days. Skype for Business (i.e. Lync) is already being replaced with Microsoft Teams. I'm not sure if MS is actually planning to replace Skype with anything or to just keep it around until nobody uses it anymore but all the recent updates felt rather half-hearted. It's still used for video calls in the consumer space apparently but I would guess that's an aging demographic as most kids and young adults seem to be using various mobile apps instead.

rjzzleep 7y ago

>> For each browser, we had to add support in our standalone plugin, that was (and still is) required to install for audio/video calls Wait Chrome doesn't need it right? I think the issue here is a codec no? There's even people that have hangouts working in pidgin because it just uses webrtc. I was trying to debug potential webrtc issues with skype web for pidgin. It's one thing to say we wanted to do this and that but I don't see you guys reaching out to browsers upstream at all to work on a solution that doesn't need a plug-in. Personally nowadays I just recommend everyone not to use Skype and many of my friends do the same despite being what we all used to use first.