Skype Fail


 

[Update June 6]

Well.  I was wrong.  My Windows phone was updated to 8.1. That means Microsoft has abandoned a good chunk of their base.


[Update June 5]

It looks like that old Nokia Lumina is installing Windows Mobile 10 just fine.  I guess that’s good news — if I ever want to use it again.


I use Skype mostly for text messaging — mainly because their emoji set is outstanding.  I also use the service for occasional video calls.  Today, however, I experienced a Skype fail.  Allow me to elaborate. (Reminder: Skype is owned by Microsoft.)

We have an old Nokia Lumina Windows phone here.  I don’t think we’ve even booted it up for a year or so.  But today I got a disturbing e-mail from Skype.  Here’s what it said:

Skype Email Skype Fail

(click for larger image)

Well.  I had no idea what Windows Mobile version was running on our ancient phone.  As I type this, the phone is trying to scarf up enough juice to get the battery charged enough so it can download the update.  I gather Windows 10 is the current standard.  But it took a while to figure that out.

When I clicked the link in the e-mail I found my way to this:

Skype Info Level 1 Skype Fail

Skype Info Level 1 (click for larger image)

That’s helpful.  Actually, not.  Confusing.  But there was that “more information” link.  Being a true techno-geek, I clicked it.  Here’s what I found (after groping around a bit):

Skype Info Level 2 Skype Fail

Skype Info Level 2 (click for larger image)

Insanity.  Microsoft has become such a sclerotic behemoth that the company can’t keep its story straight from one page to another.


About Tony Lima

Tony Lima has been working with technology, economic modeling, forecasting, and market research for 40 years. His background makes him uniquely qualified to navigate this varied landscape. Begin with his education: B.S. in chemical engineering from M.I.T. , M.B.A. from Harvard, Ph.D. in economics from Stanford. His day job was professor of economics at California State University, East Bay. He retired in 2016 to devote his time to consulting and writing. But he has found time to: write (eight books and over 100 articles ranging from wine economics to detailed analyses of meta-language code generators) consult with companies ranging from Microsoft to CEDEX keep his expertise up-to-date, constantly reading and sorting through the avalanche of information available daily maintain three blogs: Wine Research, Wine Economics, and Economic Policy Local policy analysis: Los Altos Politico.com

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