Microsoft's killed off a native Skype client for Windows Phone.

WinPho users won't be alone: Redmond will also discontinue Skype clients on Android 4.02 or lower and iOS 7.

Microsoft has already announced that OS X and Linux will lose native clients under its Skype-for-the-cloud strategy.

Rather than announcing the shift, Microsoft has updated its Skype product support page to say (for various operating systems):

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 (see Skype blog).

The future of Skype on Windows Phone was absent from Redmond's original the-cloud-is-the-future-of-Skype announcement in July (which still lists iOS and Android as getting native apps, without the versioning restrictions now revealed).

Microsoft rationalises the move to the cloud as being about features and call quality, saying it can get those right if it focuses resources on the platforms Skype users prefer. ®