Wikipedia’s bar for culturally relevant is wildly inconsistent. In this case, though, there are tons of external references to these names so it’s easy to establish “relevance” as guidelines dictate.
There's almost certainly a large enough number of people googling "Contoso" to merit a wikipedia page on its own. Sort of a microsoft-specific (active directory training material, etc) version of this:
The page shows up as the top entry if you Google "Contoso". The second is Microsoft's own explanation of what Contoso is. I think that's the perfect explanation if you're trying to figure out what "Contoso" is in all of the random .NET and MS related examples are.
Twenty years ago I contributed a chapter to a book on SQL Server and slipped in a subtle fart joke. Instead of using the then Microsoft standard sample company called “Northwind”, my example had “Southwind”.
Totally random, but apparently a rough translation of the name of the tribe that the state Kansas was named after is "People of the South Wind". I first learned about this from the song by the band Kansas of this name[1].
"at the event we needed 2 companies, so someone in the product team came up with Contoso and Fabrikham, and in the BizApps events, all the integration scenarios where around these 2 companies doing business with each other. i have no idea where the names come from – i guess its like with setting up your own off-the-shelf Limited company, someone comes up with mixes of word & names. Fabrikham is a horrible name! Contoso is better, bu only just"
There is someone driving around Redmond with a CONTOSO license plate. I've seen it several times - too bad FABRIKAM is too long for Washington state plates.
Something similiar: Much of the late 90's and early 2000's Microsoft Official Curriculum training courses used the names of real Microsoft employees in examples (along with these fictional company names). I wish I could recall some of the names right now. I remember searching for some of the names and being shocked and amused to discover they were real Microsoft employees.
Also there was a pet-supplies store in there somewhere. Back when MSDN published as newsletter as a sort of newspaper-sized thing.
The Duwamish companies were used in extended examples of client-server business automation with Microsoft Office and their server products combination of SQL Server, IIS, Active Directory, Message Queues; packaged as "Microsoft BackOffice" (egads).
I had a former boss (a couple decades ago) that was also fond of the "open the kimono" saying. Ugh. WTF is wrong with saying "full openness" or "full disclosure" or something else that sounds appropriately business-like.
"Baring it all" would be a native idiom preserving even the emphatic nudity reference while not suggesting that you're taking off some other woman's clothes.
This is a fantastic resource of fictional companies for any modern day or near-future RPG campaign. I'm currently running Shadowrun, and can always use new corporations.
If you search for these example domains in the network traffic logs of any largr company you'll see at least a few hits. This is a security issue because people use example code, copy pasted into prod code which mostly does nothing due to the domains not resolving or not hosting the appropriate content but if an attacker took over these domains they will expose a ton of companies to an attack.
I believe example.com or example.org exist specifically for this purpose. I hope those of you who write documentation keep this in mind,especially when your example domain has never beeb registered.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 111 ms ] threadBut how is this 'culturally relevant' enough to make a Wikipedia page? That's an "I'm amused" question rather than an "I'm flabbergasted" question.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example.com
> The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline. (July 2018)
As a relative outsider to the editing process who nonetheless reads a lot of Wikipedia, "notability" seems to be unevenly judged across domains.
[1] https://github.com/marak/Faker.js/
[2] https://github.com/bchavez/Bogus
https://cloud.googleblog.com/2011/04/contoso-has-gone-google...
>2011
Wait, Rebecca Black was that long ago? Feels like yesterday.
https://www.thenile.co.nz/
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_River
EDITED to add link to Google Books link.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Microsoft_SQL_Server_7_...
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_of_the_South_Wind
"at the event we needed 2 companies, so someone in the product team came up with Contoso and Fabrikham, and in the BizApps events, all the integration scenarios where around these 2 companies doing business with each other. i have no idea where the names come from – i guess its like with setting up your own off-the-shelf Limited company, someone comes up with mixes of word & names. Fabrikham is a horrible name! Contoso is better, bu only just"
[0] https://dynamics.microsoft.com/en-us/commerce/overview/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI_xuFA18m4
Also there was a pet-supplies store in there somewhere. Back when MSDN published as newsletter as a sort of newspaper-sized thing.
The Duwamish companies were used in extended examples of client-server business automation with Microsoft Office and their server products combination of SQL Server, IIS, Active Directory, Message Queues; packaged as "Microsoft BackOffice" (egads).
A term of art in the business world today; I moved to scientific research computing in 2000 and had not gotten the memo about open kimonos.
Egads.
What's the term supposed to refer to?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traf-O-Data
Someone in Microsoft makes music.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADAT
I believe example.com or example.org exist specifically for this purpose. I hope those of you who write documentation keep this in mind,especially when your example domain has never beeb registered.