David Flynn30 October 2008, 5:30 PM
Enthusiasts have snapped up a variety of Windows 7 domain names from under the nose of Redmond (and North Ryde).
Microsoft may have given its next-gen Windows a
proper name (even if it’s the same as the previous ‘Windows 7’ cypher), but it’s missed out registering many domain names connected with Vista’s successor.
It certainly seems the company’s local office dropped the ball by failing to grab windows7.com.au and windows7.net.au.
Windows7.com.au was
snapped up by Michael Hancock, who runs the popular
Australian Media Centre Community site. Hanock told APCmag.com that he seemed to beat Microsoft to the punch in registering that name.
“I suppose I got lucky with windows7.com.au. I took a punt that they’d run with that name in preference to another one like Vista.” However, Hancock says his goal is “really more about re-directing traffic to my primary (Australian Media Centre Community) domain than building a Windows 7 community or making a profit.”
Gavin Howard, from IT training agency
Which Training was quick off the mark to snatch up Windows7.net.au.
Howard
told APCmag.com that he was “probably looking to sell off” the domain
name in the coming year, saying “I’d love to get $10,000, $15,000 or
even $20,000 for it”.
Steve Giannakouras used PlanetDomain to get the more creative but open-to-misspelling windowsseven.com.au.
Potentially high-traffic Windows 7 domain names ending in UK, EU and
US suffixes were all snared by fleet-of-foot fans or speculative
squatters.
Global click-magnets Windows7.com, windows7.net and windows7.org all belong to Microsoft, of course – we can imagine heads would have rolled if they missed out on
those obvious candidates! These addresses currently point to Microsoft’s Windows Live search engine and return a page that’s been pre-programmed to show search results for ‘Windows 7’.
But that’s as far as Microsoft’s forward-thinking seems to extend. A
WhoIS check reports that windows7.info belongs to a Miss Dorota Szymczyk from the city of Konin in central Poland, famous for ‘the oldest Polish stone sign-post made of local sandstone” as well as being the birthplace of Oscar-winning film composer Jan Kaczmarek. (That question may come up in your next pub trivia quiz, so it’s best to be prepared.)
A few brave souls also took a gamble that the operating system’s initial codename of Windows Vienna would become as established as Vista’s earlier nom de plume ‘Longhorn’. Andrei Pociu’s WindowsVienna.com site remains active with Windows 7 news even though the URL itself had past its use-by date. But windowsvienna.com.au, registered to Robin Widoyo from Sydney-based wireless Internet consultancy Wisdom Technology, is a dead end.
We've reported previously on the amusing case of the Australian company Vista Windows and
how Microsoft handled its vistawindows.com domain name.