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Big-screen Skype gets small farewell note

TV videocalls are so 2010

One of the big splashes of CES 2010, Skype for televisions, will start going gently into that good night in June.

Via Skype's support FAQs comes the announcement that the talk-to-your-friends-on-the-telly app is getting sunsetted.

"Starting in June 2016, the Skype for TV application will no longer be supported; there will be no updates to the application. This will also affect new account creation and password resets," the post (euphemistically entitled "What changes are coming to Skype for TV") states.

It's a move that's bound to impress LG and Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba and Philips, all of whom jumped on the bandwagon since the original announcement in 2010, and that's not counting peripheral vendors like Logitech who also pitched boxes into the Skype for TV market.

The BBC reports that Samsung has followed fast, announcing that Skype will get its trip down a country lane on June 2.

What Microsoft seems to have missed in its assessment of the market is that a Skype call on the TV kind of gets in the way of watching sports or Netflix.

As a result, even though the post assures us that "Skype has delivered a great calling experience in the living room," the penny has finally dropped: people are using smartphones for Skype, while they watch the TV. ®

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