back to article Microsoft tackles SaaSy URL sprawl, dumping its dotcom in favor of cloud.microsoft

Microsoft has admitted its panoply of 365-branded products have sprawled across an uncomfortably large quantity of inconsistently named URLs, so the software giant has started to consolidate them all at cloud.microsoft. "As Microsoft cloud services have grown over the years, the domain space they live on has grown as well – …

  1. OhForF' Silver badge

    I hope they include things like aspnetcdn.com and anything else that currently needs scripts enabled to log in to their cloud services.

    In the long run this might help but short term it will cause all kinds of issues when switching over to their new main domain *.cloud.microsoft - another golden opportunity for hackers.

    Why could they not be bothered to set up everything they need as subdomains of microsoft.com in the first place?

    1. katrinab Silver badge
      Windows

      Or use a .net address? Isn’t that what they are supposed to be used for?

      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        If only they'd thought to come out with a product family named "Microsoft .NET"; then "microsoft.net" would be a memorable domain for them to use.

    2. gryphon

      And all the authentication URL's.

      Try and log into anything in 365 and it's bouncing around all over the place in the background with many different public certs as well.

    3. Howard Sway Silver badge

      It's nothing to do with being bothered - it's pure marketing, trying to drill cloud, cloud, cloud into people's brains.

      After all, having to type shizz.cloud.microsoft instead of shizz.microsoft is less convenient, and actually annoying. Domain names are just names, who cares whether it's "in the cloud" or not when they use something. "Cloud" of course being a synonym for "computer on the internet", just like every other computer on the internet accessed using DNS.

    4. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Why could they not be bothered to set up everything they need as subdomains of microsoft.com in the first place?

      Because marketers love domain names the way flies love shit?

      It's true that Microsoft has a huge problem with URLs, or really a number of problems. They've never really understood the concept, as anyone who uses Sharepoint (the worst information system ever invented by allegedly intelligent beings) knows. And like many corporations they've indulged in an addiction to acquiring idiotic domains, as you noted. But, really, using a word-TLD? The tackiest solution possible? What techie doesn't think word TLDs were an obnoxious cash grab by IANA and essentially useless?

  2. J.Teodor

    You know it is bad when all admins have https://msportals.io/ as a home page...

    1. philstubbington

      Ooh - didn’t know about! Very useful, thank you.

  3. Andy E
    WTF?

    What is a "cross-app experience"?

    Have I had one? Do I need one?

    1. cookieMonster Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: What is a "cross-app experience"?

      Any of their current offerings.

      Tell me you haven’t been “cross” with any of them!!

      1. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: What is a "cross-app experience"?

        Current ???

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. hoola Silver badge

      Re: What is a "cross-app experience"?

      It is when you try to do something in any application and it decides to do something smart for you.....

      How about auto-correct and auto-complete or the insanity of how Excel decides to handle copy an paste.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ah, very helpful indeed

    It means I only have to bar one domain root to stop their data extraction.

    Until they realise that and buy some dodgy ones not named Microsoft at all, of course.

  5. Dave559 Silver badge

    SaaSy, spammy, phishy…

    And, let's face it, some of their existing domains look pretty damn phishy themselves, eg:

    • aadcdn.msftauth.net
    • aadcdn.msauth.net

    Both of these definitely have the look of imposter domains, but then to have one of them looking a lot like a phishing mis-spelling of the other is even worse! (And login.microsoftonline.com also sounds like exactly the sort of site/domain that a phisher would set up…)

  6. Zippy´s Sausage Factory
    Unhappy

    Of course, this change will have the side effect of putting everything on the same server, making it much harder to delete unwanted tracking cookies, block unwanted telemetry and so forth.

    I'm sure that's just a coincidence, though...

  7. bo111

    Google AMP URLs

    For security I block JavaScript by default. It is pretty inconvenient that Google AMP URLs for non-Google sites get their properties propagated from google.com, therefore I must disable JavaScript for Google.com.

  8. philstubbington

    It would be great if they’d do the same for everything partners have too. It’s a real mess!

  9. ecofeco Silver badge

    More opporunity for failure

    While this looks like a logical move on paper, we all know Microsoft will screw it up.

  10. Claptrap314 Silver badge

    https://xkcd.com/927/, of course...

  11. Rob 15

    Cloud schmoud

    Won't 'cloud' be a dated term in a few years, like 'web services' or 'network computing'. How about they come up with an original term. Like 'the fog'.

    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: Cloud schmoud

      2025: Microsoft announces all their public URLs will be changed to "ai.microsoft".

  12. -tim
    Facepalm

    Top level corp domains were always a bad idea

    Already fixed here:

    $ host www.cloud.microsoft

    Host www.cloud.microsoft not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)

    I add top level domains when I have a need because almost all the common ones are full of scammers.

    1. X5-332960073452
      Headmaster

      Re: Top level corp domains were always a bad idea

      No need for the WWW bit

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