History:
From 1995 to 1998, the MSN.com domain was used by Microsoft primarily to promote MSN as an online service and Internet service provider. At the time, MSN.com also offered a custom start page and an Internet tutorial, but Microsoft's major web portal was known as 'Microsoft Internet Start,' located at home.microsoft.com.
Internet Start served as the default home page for Internet Explorer and offered basic information such as news, weather, sports, stocks, entertainment reports, links to other websites on the Internet, articles by Microsoft staff members, and software updates for Windows. Microsoft's original news website, msnbc.com (now NBCNews.com), which launched in 1996, was also tied closely to the Internet Start portal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSN