I don't know why the whole Indian Media is creating such a big deal about Windows Custom Domains. Every magazine, news paper and news website is writing about "Customise email IDs for Indian from Windows live".
Well they are not doing anything surprising. Its just a simple "email hosting" for your own custom domains. Thats it!!
When I heard "Microsoft has announced unique email ids for everyone powered by Windows Live Hotmail beginning with ‘www.lokhandwalarocks.com’", I thought of visiting the website lokhandwalarocks.com. Well the site is nothing but just a regular domain name.
What microsoft doing is providing the email hosting for your domain. Its not like windows live is giving you a freedom to write whatevername @ whateverdomain.com.
The thing is, you have to have your own domain name. If you dont have your own domain name, Windows Custom Domains lets you purchase one for you. If you are living in a community say for example - Sindhunagar and you want to have an email address as raj @ sindhunagar.com then either you have to have a website/domain www.sindhunagar.com. If you dont have it, you can buy it using Windows Live.
So its nothing but you are allowing Microsoft to host the e-mail service for your domain. Yeah the benefits are,
- Create an unlimited* number of accounts on Windows Live Mail
- Accounts in your domain work with Windows Live/MSN services, including Messenger and Spaces
- You can manage your accounts using web tools provided by microsoft.
May be by creating a domain like "Lokhandwalarocks.com", microsoft is trying to get customer's attention as the movie "Shootout at Lokhandwala" is on the verge of its release and may be this is a good idea to show people about their 'community' attachments and stuff like that.
They are also planning to start a domains like www.mumbairocks.in and www.goarocks.in which are currently parked domains.
Microsoft knows how to do marketing thats for sure !!