London, Sep 18 (IANS): Technology giant Microsoft is planning to close its London office of Skype and to lay off most of the nearly 400 people employed there, a media report here said.

"Microsoft made the decision to unify some engineering positions, potentially putting at risk a number of globally focused Skype and Yammer roles," the Financial Times quoted Microsoft as saying.

Skype will still maintain offices throughout the world, including in Redmond, Palo Alto, Vancouver, and several locations in  Europe.

But the layoffs indicate a shift in priorities, with anonymous former employees telling media that Microsoft has increasingly been taking control of Skype, replacing Skype's employees with its own.

Skype was one of the first big voice chatting apps, but it's increasingly come under threat from basically all sides.

WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, among others, offer the same features and have enormous user bases. Meanwhile, business tools like Slack are beginning to build in the features, like video chatting, that people have traditionally gone to Skype for.