Searches of Internet registration records have recently revealed that the Office. com domain has been acquired by Microsoft from a Brussels-based company, ContactOffice, with the control of the domain being transferred to Microsoft on Tuesday.

According to searches of WHOIS, the domain was earlier registered in the name of the online productivity and collaboration suite provider - the ContactOffice Group, which Thursday presented a message on Office. com informing the users that the office. com domain had been changed to the European company's secondary address - office. contactoffice. com - which it has possessed since 1999.

Explicitly, the message reads: "As you know from the recent email we sent you, we will be transitioning the operation of your Virtual Office account to ContactOffice. com during the next 30 days. As part of this transition, on Monday, June 29, 2009, we changed email addresses in the office. com domain to ones in the contactoffice. com domain."

The message, from ContactOffice employee Tom Graham further says: "Also, if you use POP or IMAP with Office. com you will need to change your settings to pop. contactoffice. net and imap. contactoffice. net respectively."

Meanwhile, Microsoft - which last month launched a technical preview of Office 2010 - has neither divulged any details about the recent domain acquisition, nor has it revealed any plans pertaining to the new address from ContactOffice.