Hi everyone,
Strange enough that two weeks passed and nobody spoke about it (or I
didn't see any mention)... anyway.
Microsoft brings its (rather ugly) new Skype experience to desktops:
https://blogs.skype.com/news/2017/08/17/hello-desktops-meet-skype-preview/
Those of you who did see newest Skype versions on mobile platforms
already have the happy (where is my irony punctuation?) opportunity to
get a look on what's going in there.
In short: it is an Electron-based application. Microsoft did all its
best for its accessibility, and it is really 90% accessible with some
tiny bits that cannot be reached. But it is one single web-based
window with no possibility to separate chats in any way. More than
that, there are virtually no settings, no sound selection between
modern and classic, no font size selection for our sighted or visually
impaired fellows with remaining vision, nothing. You can't even surely
remain in a call window when in a voice conversation, because when
someone else calls you - boom, you are out of that window where the
hang up button is.
So is it accessible? Yes, mostly. but is it usable? No, should I say,
because when my boss would send me a message, I won't be able to
quickly find his message, because... well, because it's one huge web
page. Most like Slack, if you get what I mean. And yes, it does
consume memory like a monster, both on mobile and on desktop.
Microsoft says our good old Skype is about to die since this new
beast-thing can be installed on Windows lower than ten (I did install
it on a Windows 7 PC).
I think we need to discuss it thoroughly here and probably write to
Microsoft and to ask them to do something with it: either not to
discontinue the good old Skype we love or to provide us with an API
that would allow us to develop our own client with basic functionality
like audio calls, IM and file sending/receiving.
If you have read this far, thank you very much for your attention.

--
With best regards from Ukraine,
Andre
Skype: menelion_elensule
Twitter: @m_elensule; Facebook: menelion