Microsoft Sway Rumored to Be New CDN Service
Microsoft has not confirmed rumors, however investigative work first reported by Jamie Zoch mentions that Microsoft has recently acquired the domain name Sway.com. This coincides with Microsoft’s purchase of the domains sway-cdn.com and sway-cdn.net as well as sway-int.com. You can type these links into your browser and you’ll notice that you’ll be redirected to a search page with the search terms listed in the Bing Bar. Jamie Zoch notes that this is standard process for Microsoft because “they do this with just about every domain they register / acquire.” Microsoft could have registered the domain by proxy thus not revealing itself as being the true owner of the domain. Many analysts believe that Microsoft intentionally registered these domains under their corporate identities to help build buzz about one of their newest cloud offerings.
Since Amazon has its own content distribution network built into AWS called CloudFront, it only makes sense that Microsoft tries and combats this product lineup with its own product. If Sway can prove to be better than CloudFront, Microsoft stands to gain big time from those who provide the consumer market with cloud services. Zoch, who is credited with first reporting the acquisition of the domain, mentions “I think Microsoft is getting ready to launch the software pretty soon, or it isn’t likely that they would have revealed they were behind the purchase of the domain name yet. They have also set domain name servers.”
Zoch also speculates the purchase of Sway.com likely cost Microsoft at least 6 figures. Records suggest the Microsoft has been planning Sway for sometime given the fact that it appears that they acquired the domain on March 3rd 2014. Zoch goes on to report that he found that Microsoft applied for a trademark for the name noting on the trademark applications that Sway was: “Software as a Service, Online Computer Software.”
