Microsoft Needs To Fix Skype (theverge.com)

It's no secret that Microsoft has long stopped caring about Skype for Linux. But the VoIP and instant messaging service isn't exactly working well on other platforms either. Microsoft reporter and critic Tom Warren lists a number of issues he continues to face on Skype. These issues include infrequent restarts, too many update prompts, and just having to deal with the unimpressive user interface that Skype throws at everyone's face. "I'm not sure what Microsoft has done to Skype, but it sucks now," he writes. Warren adds: Recently, friends and family have started experiencing some of the many issues I experience, including calls simply not connecting properly and every device in a home ringing non-stop even when a call is activated. Microsoft had promised to fix notifications blasting out to both your desktop machine and mobile, but I still frequently receive them in real-time on multiple devices. [...] I regularly have to restart the app just to make a call, or have my microphone detected correctly. This isn't a single device with driver issues, it's consistent across machines. I can't even scroll up and down on the contacts section of the Skype app with my trackpad, it just doesn't work. Those are bugs that should be easy to address, but Microsoft has also struggled to get the UI right with Skype.

Comments

What did you expected? Same old story

[JcMorin]

The same happened when Winamp or ICQ got purchased. The new company put the crap they want. Failed to understand the code and get stuck with hard to fix bug until the people move to another product.

Are you new here?

[Maxwell]

Wait 5 years, or until a viable competitor emerges. Microsoft will then announce - with great fanfare - that they are creating a brand new super awesome video chat tool. Microsoft lovers will trip over themselves to be the first to herald the arrival of a new age. What they won't remember, what no one ever seems to remember is that Microsoft was responsible for screwing it up in the first place.

I am still waiting for Active Directory to do what NDS used to do in the 1990's. And I can't wait until powershell finally replaces what UNIX has been doing since the 1970's. Remember this FACT: We would not have had graphical desktops without Microsoft! We'd still be using DOS!

Yes, indeed it will be a great day when Microsoft invents, easy, universal video chat...I'm so excited!

Re:Skype for Business

[tlhIngan]

Recently, my copy of Skype for Business has been terminating abruptly. This is on my PC at work, maintained by my company. I can understand Microsoft not maintaining the Linux or "home" version of Skype, but I would expect their business version to be robust and reliable.

That's the problem, actually.

Skype for Business is really a re-branding of Lync, Microsoft's other conferencing solution. And basically managing to screw it up like how they tried to unify Skype and MSN Messenger. At least the latter was text chat and Microsoft managed to get a gateway going (you could do voice and video on MSN, but it wasn't used heavily)

Then Microsoft rebranded Lync as Skype for Business, integrated its functionality into Skype and all heck broke loose and the two really weren't meant to interoperate well. The user lists merged, but try having a multi-way conference between Skype and Lync users and hilarity ensues as randomly one group or the other fails to get voice, video or other data.

Forget Skype. What about Outlook?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about fixing the 10,001 things wrong with Outlook? I'm forced to use the POS every day at work and it makes my skin crawl every time I use it. Microsoft seems to have embraced a culture of technical mediocrity. The hard reality behind their grandiose marketing hype is an attitude of slovenly indifference.

Re:Microsoft's standard annoying programming

[junkgoof]

Microsoft has never been consistent on the UI.

Software quality is dropping like a stone with offshoring. You see it from IBM and Oracle too. Lots of bugs, incoherent error messages from someone who just learned that you can trap errors but not how to write English or how to provide different messages for different errors so that the real problem is hidden worse than if nothing had been trapped. Not that everyone onshore is a genius but there is some attempt at HR and technical interviews. Not even lip service once you go offshore, people are cheap and the cost of having crappy coders destroying the code base doesn't seem to figure for non-technical VPs. No end in sight because it's a management fad and outsourcers can bill offshore workers at crazy rates without customer complaints, it's a fad, execs can't knock it without admitting they have no idea what is going on in the companies they "run."