Right now, Microsoft apps and services use dozens of different URLs on several different domains. As you can see from the word cloud above, the URLs range from Officeapps.live.com to bing.net to azureedge.net. Such diverse domain names cause challenges in end user navigation and overhead in administration.
To simplify the domain names and URLs, Microsoft today announced a single, consistent and cohesive domain: cloud.microsoft. All authenticated, user-facing Microsoft 365 apps and services will be using cloud.microsoft domain name.
For example, Outlook will be available at Outlook.cloud.microsoft. Loop will be available at loop.cloud.microsoft. And so on.
This unified domain for Microsoft 365 apps and services offer the following advantages:
- For end users, it will streamline the overall experience by reducing sign-in prompts, redirects, and delays when navigating across apps.
- For admins, it will reduce the complexity of the allow-lists required to help tenants stay secure while enabling users to access the apps and services they need to do their work.
- For all customers and developers – it will lay a foundation for better and tighter integration across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem by streamlining development and improving performance of cross-app experiences.
Microsoft selected cloud.microsoft instead of another .com domain because of the following reasons:
- Compared to .com and other common domains, .microsoft improves the security, trustworthiness, and integrity of its web offerings since Microsoft has exclusive rights to the .microsoft TLD.
- So, end users can assume that all experiences hosted on the .microsoft domain to be legitimate and authentic
Microsoft is both the registry operator and sole registrant for this exclusive, trusted namespace
This change is not happening overnight. For now, only brand-new services will be deployed on the cloud.microsoft domain. Existing services will transition at a slower pace. For admins, *.cloud.microsoft has already been added to the official list of Office 365 URLs and IP address ranges. Existing links and bookmarks by end users will redirect automatically to the new domain after the transition.
Before changing the domain for any existing service which requires customer network configuration, Microsoft will notify admins at least 30 days in advance.
Note: Microsoft.com will continue to be used for non-product experiences such as marketing, support, and e-commerce. Only authenticated, user-facing product experiences will be hosted on this new unified cloud.microsoft.
