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Free Domain Name AND Web Hosting from Microsoft

Now THIS is what I call ‘good thinking’! Microsoft, as a part of its Office Live Beta program, is giving away free domain names with free web hosting. You can have it as a part of the Microsoft Office Live Basic pack, which they claim will be free after the beta test period too. So you can now get your own domain name, with 30 MB space on signing up. You’ll need a Microsoft Passport Login and a credit card. ‘Huh? Isn’t it free?’ would be a standard question, but they say it’s only being taken to verify a customer’s identity (pretty standard, many other sites do it; but mostly sneaky ones out to phish you).

Your domain would be registered with Melbourne IT registrar, so even if you cancel your Office Live subscription you can still retain the name by transferring it to some other registrar. The sad part is you that if you already have one, then you can transfer the domain name to Office Live, not the content. And 30 MB is nothing these days. Well, you can’t have your cake and eat it too, I guess. Because in this cruel world, nobody gives this much away for free; not Google, not Yahoo!, nobody else. It’s a surprise actually seeing this coming from Microsoft, the Darth Vader of the software industry.

Oh, almost forgot. You NEED Internet Explorer for this. And you can only choose between .com, .net and .org

Go to the Microsoft Office Live Beta site.

2 replies on “Free Domain Name AND Web Hosting from Microsoft”

Your domain name will be registered with Melbourne IT, our domain name registrar, with you as the registrant (owner). If you cancel the Office Live service, you maintain full control of your domain name through the Web site of Melbourne IT (www.melbourneit.com.au/). However, you cannot transfer your domain name to another registrar for 60 days after signing up with Office Live. Note that once you cancel your Office Live subscription, you are responsible for paying the annual registration fee for the domain name.

Read the text in bold ?

It also says –

Microsoft Office Live Basics
$0 / month
This is a free monthly subscription for this Microsoft Office Live beta offer. This offer will end if you cancel your subscription or when the beta concludes, at which time you will have the option to continue with Office Live through a free or fee-based subscription.

So that would mean that the free-beta-period would end, and you would have to let go of the subscription, and hence end up paying annual free to melbourne-IT ?

wot say ? (drop me an email or a comment on my blog with ur views)

Even now, Microsoft Office Live Beta has different versions, free and paid depending upon their capabilities. It is true that the ToS does say that the domain will expire unless you shift it if the subscription is cancelled, or after beta period, when you will be given an option to continue with a free or paid version of the service. So maybe the free version after beta period may not have the free domain feature, but we can’t say about that now. Microsoft has stated though that it won’t pull the plug on it’s free users due to such concerns, but you really can’t say anything about what Microsoft may do. Even I think that taking the credit card details during a free beta trial may hint towards a paid version after beta. So what I think is make hay (I mean, website) while the sun shines, and get a free site till it lasts. It is interesting to note that it is the only free service that actually provides a top-level domain name from accredited agencies.

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