Both are useful features when talking back and forth with a colleague or friend, although the layout isn’t quite ideal-they sort of dominate the conversation. Photos can easily be dropped into a chat session, as can documents. His email address is more by Gregg Keizer on general, the new chat UI looks nice, with round avatars representing your friends. Follow Gregg on Twitter at on Google+ or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. The newest versions of Skype for Windows desktop and OS X can be downloaded from the division's website. In both those cases, Microsoft said it was setting a 'new servicing baseline' with the mandated editions.

Microsoft did the same with Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) on Windows 7, giving consumers until June 10 to apply an April update. In April, for example, Microsoft required customers running Windows 8.1, the upgrade released last October, to migrate to Windows 8.1 Update by June 10 or lose patching privileges. While Skype did not elaborate on why it's pushing the older editions into retirement, it was reminiscent of moves that Microsoft itself has taken. 'Once a version is retired, users will no longer be able to sign into the retired version until they upgrade to the latest version of Skype,' a Microsoft spokesperson said in an email reply to questions. Skype did not spell out what it meant by 'retire' in the blog post - whether the older software will simply not be supported or that only the most recent versions will work with the network - but Microsoft clarified the situation. The current versions of Skype are 6.16 for Windows and 6.18 for OS X.

Those versions, and any earlier, are the ones marked for retirement. Skype for Windows 6.13 shipped in January 2014, while Skype for OS X 6.14 reached users in February. Skype is a division of Microsoft, which acquired the chat and over-IP phone software company in 2011 for $8.5 billion.

Newest version of skype for mac