You are probably among the many who have never heard of Skype Qik, a “short video messaging service” that Skype and Microsoft launched in October 2014. It offered short messages without the need to create an account, only requiring a phone number, similar to WhatsApp.
The company justifies its decision by stating that Qik has been integrated into Skype, which already has a video conversation feature. Moreover, short messaging already existed when Qik was released. As such, the Qik app is no longer needed and will be completely shut down on March 24th.
Skype bought the Qik service in January 2011 for $150 million, just a month before Microsoft acquired Skype for $8.5 billion. The original Qik service was designed for recording short video clips and sharing them among friends.
