Google came up with some staggering news today. It announced that it was restructuring its operations and renaming itself Alphabet. Google would now be a part of the Alphabet corporation, which would also contain within itself some of Google’s more futuristic ventures, such as Google Fiber, Calico, and Google X.
But there was a hitch. In the year 2015, you can’t just come up with a name like Alphabet and hope to get the url. Alphabet.com was already taken. So Google came up with the rather unique www.abc.xyz domain, and hosted its official announcement there.
Now Microsoft and Google are fierce rivals. Microsoft is understandably envious of how Google dethroned it as the world’s premier tech company in the 2000s. Google isn’t too fond of Microsoft either, and internally employees are told not to use Google products so as to not “feed the competition.”
But in public, the companies maintain friendly ties. After the restructuring, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella cordially congratulated new Google CEO Sundar Pichai on twitter, and Pichai cordially replied.
But Microsoft had something up its sleeve. It so happens that the url abc.wtf – a clear play on www.abc.xyz – redirects to Bing.com. According to a Microsoft employee, it’s not usual for his company to do this, and he’s “surprised at Microsoft’s sense of humour”.
Well played Microsoft, well played.