IBM launched its cloud service calling SmartCloud however they don’t own the domain name SmartCloud.com
SmartCloud.com is owned by a company located in El Segundo, California and the domain is parked so you would think would be available for purchase
But it gets worse, because in this case not only did IBM fail to secure the domain prior to it release, but it selected a name for its service for which the matching .com is blocked by Firefox as a possible “web forgery” and Chrome has it marked as a reported phishing site, something less than a company like IBM would like to be associated with.
We have written about this topic many times, where Fortune 500 companies roll out major product launches prior to securing the matching domain. Many of the comments I typically get in response to such stories is the company does need it, well here is another side.
Something worse that “not needing” the domain or lost traffic from people looking for a product can happen
Here is what I got on Firefox:
Here is how the domain name SmartCloud.com appears on GoogleChrome:
DomainersChoice.com says
the doman is parked with godady’s cashparking and was last updated in Feb 2011, unless Godady started spreading malware, I assume it is a simply a problem of users reporting it wrongly.
page howe says
sold at sedo in february 13 2011, nit sure if sale price was high enough ot make weekly rankings, or may have been confidental
timely buy for someone
ph
DomainState is much better than other forums for domains says
many big companies often forget to register important domains for their business
Adam says
FYI : SmartCloud sold for $5K in February.
BullS says
smartscloud is open
I guess it is called StupidCloud
.Me of course! says
It is summer time. Who need clouds? Sun4.Me/please. Summer.Sun.Me.
Indeed.
BullS says
Cloud is over…all done.
CloudComputingSucks says it all
.Me of course! says
What are the chances that Oracle will reuse SUN dot com?
SunComputing sounds better than CloudComputing.
Nic says
@.Me of course!
“What are the chances that Oracle will reuse SUN dot com? SunComputing sounds better than CloudComputing.”
Brilliant!!!! Well spotted. What a terrific tactic. I think I will get on the phone and sell that idea as if it were my own.
LindaM says
It happens all the time Im sure. Just last week a media company made an offer on a generic .tv name I have for sale. When I went to research the buyers I find amongst their media portfolio a video commercial for them doing business under the name they dont yet own.
I accepted their substantially higher 2nd offer 🙂