Skype for Windows Phone 8 and Windows RT will cease to work in 'early 2017'

Support pages for Microsoft's Skype VoIP client state that the versions for Windows Phone 8 and 8.1 and Windows RT will end official support in October 2016, but will continue to work until sometime in early 2017.

Microsoft announced a few weeks ago that it would be transitioning Skype from its current peer-to-peer system to a cloud-based infrastructure, and as a result some older versions of Skype would stop working. Now the company's support pages (via Neowin) have more info on what will happen to the Windows Phone and Windows RT versions in the near future:

On the Windows Phone front, Microsoft stated:

While support will no longer be available from October 2016, the Skype app on Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 8.1 will continue to work (possibly with some limitations) until early 2017, when we finish moving Skype calling to the cloud

The Windows RT support section has similar language:

While support will no longer be available from October 2016, Skype for Windows RT will continue to work (possibly with some limitations) until early 2017, when we finish moving Skype calling to the cloud

At the moment, there no word on what sort of "limitations" will be put into those older versions of Skype after support ends in October.

John Callaham