Microsoft snaps up Office.com domain

As noted by blogger Long Zheng, Microsoft has snapped up the Office.com domain.

The address would seem to make for a logical home for the forthcoming Web-based version of Office, though Microsoft declined to say how it plans to use the address.

"At this point it's too early to share details on our plans around www.office.com," a Microsoft representative said on Thursday. Microsoft launched a technical preview of Office 2010 last month, but the Web-based versions aren't slated to start public testing until later this year. Microsoft has said that the browser-based Office Web Applications will be a free part of the Windows Live service and will work with Safari and Firefox, in addition to Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

As for Office.com, Microsoft appears to have acquired the domain from ContactOffice, which has its own Web-based suite of tools. As of Thursday morning, a message on the Office.com site warns users that they are being moved to the ContactOffice.com domain.

"As you know from the recent email we sent you, we will be transitioning the operation of your Virtual Office account to ContactOffice.com during the next 30 days," reads the current message on the site. "As part of this transition, on Monday, June 29, 2009, we changed email addresses in the office.com domain to ones in the contactoffice.com domain."

Microsoft declined to offer any details about its acquisition of the Office.com domain. A representative of ContactOffice did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

Update: Robin Wauters at TechCrunch notes that the Office.com site wasn't owned by ContactOffice itself, but operated under a revenue-sharing agreement with the U.S.-based owner of the site.

(Credit: CNET News)

[ca5ter]

I wonder how much they paid for the domain name. Back in the day Office.com was purchased for a couple million dollars if I remember correctly.

[empirestatebuddy]

Yeah. It couldn't have been cheap. I mean, once you hear, "Microsoft is interested in buying your web domain," the price goes up dramatically. lol

[JCPayne]

They might put it in their 10K SEC filing.

[codynews]

heheh, I was going to ask the same thing. I'm curious as to what was paid.

[redmarine]

I really hope Microsoft will put some nice features into their Online Office suits. This should truly be interesting.

[empirestatebuddy]

They'll put in just enough to be better than Google Office, but not enough so that you still won't want to buy the real version of Office. ;)

[redmarine]

Well, I've always preferred the real deal. :P

[FutureGuy]

@empirestatebuddy They really can't put all the features of Office in a web tool and still make it useable.

[hankthedwarf]

Won't MS have to reveal the price eventually per SEC rules?

[pdbrickhouse]

I think that whatever amount they paid wouldn't be material enough for them to say anything.

[pentest]

It is pretty obvious what it is for. To sucker the morons into paying a monthly fee to use Office and have their files held hostage.

[selfkill]

If that thought is "obvious" to you, then you really didn't think through the concept too carefully (or you're just a troll). After all, the idea is to compete with Google so if they start charging access to docs then nobody would use the service in the first place now would they?

[freebird1974]

Microsoft needs to come up with an original idea instead of copying others. Google doesn't have as large a stake in office apps as MS. But when someone hones in on MS's territory MS tries like hell to crush them. Microsoft did this to Netscape but Google is too big now so Microsoft is reverting back to stealing ideas to compete

[monkeyfun14]

Thats called competition letting only one company provide a product is bad.

And ms isn't simply just competing considering their product will probably be the most feature rich