Microsoft cloud services move to a new domain for a good reason

Microsoft is moving their cloud services to a new domain .cloud.microsoft which is a good thing that gives us all a little more confidence in their online services.

At the moment, Microsoft’s service are a dreadful jumble of domains, mostly .com but also some .net.  And there’s no consistency with Sharepoint and ClipChamp having its own .com (sharepoint.com clipchamp.com) but ToDo and Forms as sub-domains (todo.office.com and forms.office.com). Others use .net (bing.net and office.net) or even .ms (another Microsoft owned TLD) or .la.

Not only is that confusing but it’s a security risk because anyone can (and do) register .com or .net domain names to trick people into clicking on fake Microsoft site.  Those sites are often used to grab logins and passwords.

The jumble of domains can cause login hassles. If you’ve ever been frustrated by repeated login prompts, it could be that you’re being passed across Microsoft owned domain names, each requiring its own authorization.

Enter .microsoft domain

Now Microsoft has it’s own top level domain (TLD) cunningly named .microsoft which they can use to standardize and better protect their domain naming.

Since the company totally controls .microsoft , no-one else can make or buy a fake sub-domain.

.cloud.microsoft

The first step is a gradual change of cloud services to variants on .cloud.microsoft

outlook.cloud.microsoft, status.cloud.microsoft, loop.cloud.microsoft, onedrive.cloud.microsoft, teams.cloud.microsoft, sway.cloud.microsoft, viva.cloud.microsoft

These and other .cloud.microsoft domains will be used by Microsoft 365 apps and services.

This change should not be noticeable to most people. The apps and services should switch to the new domain seamlessly – with emphasis on the ‘should’ <g>. 

Use of any .cloud.microsoft service will require authentication, same as now but hopefully with less hassle.

Admins might need to update their approved domains to include .microsoft or .cloud.microsoft

What about Microsoft.com?

No change there. Microsoft.com will continue as the main public face of the company.

Or as Microsoft puts it (I kid you not) Microsoft.com is for “non-product experiences”.