Microsoft to close down Skype office in London, 400 jobs at risk

Microsoft is planning to shut down its Skype’s London office, putting up to 400 jobs at risk, according to a report in Financial Times (FT). This decision comes after Microsoft had announced last month that it would be laying off nearly 3,000 employees globally by the fourth quarter of 2016.

“Microsoft made the decision to unify some engineering positions, potentially putting at risk a number of globally focused Skype and Yammer roles,” the FT quoted Microsoft as saying. The closing down is particularly notable since Skype was founded in London in 2003, and acquired by Microsoft in 2011 for $8.5 billion.

Skype would still be maintaining offices throughout the world, including in Redmond, Palo Alto, Vancouver, and several locations in Europe. But the layoffs still indicate a shift in priorities, with anonymous former employees telling the Times that Microsoft has increasingly been taking control of Skype, replacing Skype's employees with its own.

The video-chatting app has been facing tough competitions, not just from the likes of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger that offer the same features and have enormous user base but also from business tools like Slack that are beginning to build in the video chatting features that has traditionally been Skype’s domain.