Microsoft Offering Free Domains and Hosting (Yes, Really)

Here’s your chance to score some free stuff from Microsoft: The Windows-maker is offering up free domain names with a year’s worth of hosting.

The deal is part of Microsoft’s Office Live Basics campaign. For signing up, you get a domain of your choice and hosting for 12 months. The plan includes 500MB of storage and up to 100 e-mail accounts. You also gain access to some business management tools and site creation utilities.

The freebie is technically for small businesses, though there’s no real restriction in place preventing you from using the space for whatever you wish. Microsoft will, of course, offer pay-to-play upgrades along with the free stuff, but you’re under no obligation to accept any of them.

After a year, Microsoft will charge you $14.95 a year for the hosting, if you choose to keep your site on its servers.

Amazingly, not bad at all.

(Via)