List of fictional Microsoft companies

Microsoft uses a variety of fictional companies in the documentation and training material for its products. Microsoft documentation and learning materials often contain fictional scenarios and descriptions of how their products can be deployed and used in these scenarios. Many of these companies are used in such examples. Some of the fictional companies have associated websites, almost all of which redirect to microsoft.com.

Companies[edit]

All websites redirect to microsoft.com, unless marked by an asterisk (*)

Name	Website	Usage
A. Datum Corporation	adatum.com	Example company in Active Directory Federation Services 2.0 demos^[1] Example URL in Microsoft Office
AdventureWorks Cycles	adventure-works.com	Used as an example in Microsoft CRM^[2] and Biztalk^[3] training material Used in example databases for Microsoft SQL Server^[4] Used in tutorials for Microsoft Office XP on disk. Also used as a sign on a store which can be seen in Forza Horizon.
Alpine Ski House	alpineskihouse.com	Used as an example company in Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 sample application^[5]
Awesome Computers		Used as an example company in Windows Server 2003 documentation^[6]
Baldwin Museum of Science		Used as an example location for MapPoint .Net documentation^[7]
Blue Yonder Airlines	blueyonderairlines.com* (has been both a demo website^[8] and a redirect page to microsoft.com^[9] in the past, but is no longer a functional website)	Used as an example site for various features of Windows Installers, including embedding links in installers and creating URL based installers^[10] Used on airplanes in the background of Forza Motorsport 6 and 7, as well as on billboards in Forza Horizon 3.
City Power & Light
Coho Vineyard	cohovineyard.com and cohovineyarddemo2.com^{[permanent dead link]} (cohovineyarddemo2 is no longer reachable.)*	Used as a demo company in early Office 365 introduction videos
Coho Winery	cohowinery.com	Used as an example in documentation for XML Serialization ^[11] and Visual Basic ^[12]
Coho Vineyard & Winery
Consolidated Messenger		Used in some Microsoft Certification Exams questions
Contoso Ltd.	contoso.com and contoso.net* (contoso.net is used in Microsoft documentation, but is not owned by Microsoft)	Contoso.com is used as a demo domain in Microsoft Exchange training material "contoso.com/Service.asmx?WSDL" is used in Microsoft InfoPath Designer 2013 when designing a "Web Service". "Contoso Toolbar", a fictional toolbar, is used to demonstrate the Add-on Performance Advisor in Internet Explorer 9 Contoso.com is used as an example domain in virtually all Microsoft Certification Exams Contoso.net is used as an example domain in the account configuration wizard from Microsoft Outlook 2007, while Contoso.com is used as an example in the help file Contoso.net is used as an example domain in Microsoft Lync Server 2010 documentation^[13] Used as an example company in Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 sample application^[14] Used an example website in Internet Information Services All those companies are used in Demo Dynamics AX 2012 environment and in others versions of Dynamics AX : Contoso Consulting - Contoso Consulting FR - Contoso Consulting GB - Contoso Consulting USA - Contoso Entertainment China - Contoso Entertainment Japan - Contoso Entertainment System - Contoso Entertainment System Brazil - Contoso Entertainment System Germany - Contoso Entertainment System India - Contoso Entertainment System Russia - Contoso Entertainment System USA - Contoso Group - Contoso Orange Juice - Contoso Process Industry- Contoso Retail - Contoso Retail FR - Contoso Retail USA . Contoso.com is used as an example domain in Windows Sockets 2 documentation^[15]
Contoso Ads		Fictional company whose services are being developed during Microsoft's internal Azure bootcamp (Taught to new cloud developers at Microsoft)
Contoso Bank	Contoso Bank Website	Demo site for SmartScreen Filter in Internet Explorer
Contoso Hotel	contosohotel.com (no longer owned by Microsoft)	Contoso Hotel has been used in several Microsoft Office Tutorials, for example how to embed a PowerPoint Presentation into a website PowerPoint Tutorial Example
Contoso Pharmaceuticals
	cpandl.com	Used as an example in documentation for XML Serialization^[11]
CRONUS (Multiple)		Used as example company in Dynamics NAV^[16]
Electronic, Inc.
Fabrikam, Inc.	fabrikam.com	Used as an example domain in Remote Desktop Connection Used as an example eCommerce Storefront in the fashion industry in Dynamics AX 2012 Retail R2 Used as a sample company for testing and development in Dynamics GP^[17] Used as a fictional computer manufacture in FlexGo documentation Used as an example company in documentation for Outlook Electronic Business cards^[18] Used as an example company in a Publisher brochure template Used as an example company in Skype for Business screenshots Used to publish a sample Program on an Example of the Program Compatibility Assistant in the Windows Help and support
Fourth Coffee	fourthcoffee.com and fourthcoffee1.com*	fourthcoffee1.com was used as a demo site for Microsoft Office Live Fourth Coffee is used as site template in Microsoft WebMatrix
FusionTomo	www.fusiontomo.com	Demo company used in MOS certification training
Graphic Design Institute
Humongous Insurance	humongousinsurance.com
Itexamworld.com
LitWare Inc.	litware.com and litwareinc.com
Lucerne Publishing	lucernepublishing.com	Used in Office 365 Training.
Margie's Travel	www.margiestravel.com	Example URL in Microsoft Excel
	malvertising.info^{[citation needed]}*	Demo site for SmartScreen Filter in Internet Explorer
Northridge Video
Northwind Traders	www.northwindtraders.com	Demo company for database capabilities in Microsoft Access. Example domain used in the .NET API documentation for starting processes^[19].
Olympia	https://olympia.windows.com/?OCID=WIP_r_ITPro6_Body_Olympia	Used to give business Insiders a way to try out features like Windows Information Protection (WIP), Windows Defender Application Guard (WDAG) and Host Intrusion Prevention Systems (HIPs) all running in a real-world enterprise environment.
Parnell Aerospace
ProseWare, Inc.	proseware.com	ProseWare Gizmo is a family of fictional PCI expansion cards, which were used to illustrate a variety of concepts relating to Windows driver development in the WDK documentation.
School of Fine Art	fineartschool.net	Used as an example domain in the help file for Microsoft Outlook 2007 Used as an example location for MapPoint .Net documentation^[7]
Southbridge Video
StrikeStrike	strikestrike.com* (Site is no longer owned by Microsoft)	Demo site for SmartScreen Filter in Internet Explorer
TailSpin Toys	tailspintoys.com	Used by Microsoft Australia in various Team Foundation Server demo environments and training materials. Used by Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System as a Demo environment.
Tailwind Traders		Used by Microsoft, made popular in 2018, 2019, and 2020 in both Microsoft Ignite in Orlando Florida, as well as Microsoft Ignite The Tour. TailwindTraders is a forward-thinking retail business with a diverse set of technical needs. https://github.com/microsoft/tailwindtraders is the core code used for many samples.
Tasmanian Traders
The Phone Company
Trey Research Inc.	treyresearch.net	Example company in Active Directory Federation Services 2.0 demos Some of the company's properties are seen in some missions in Microsoft Flight Simulator X e.g. "Oil Rig Transport" "Trey" is a nickname for Bill Gates
The Volcano Coffee Company		Example website for IIS 4.0
WingTip Toys	wingtiptoys.com	Used in the Microsoft Office Frontpage 2003 demo Used in the Small Business Server test drive
Wide World Importers	wideworldimporters.com	Used by Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System as a Demo environment supplier.
Woodgrove Bank	woodgrovebank.com* No longer active.	Acquired with NCompass Resolution, which became Microsoft Content Management Server; used in NCompass and MCMS website demos Demo site used to show security features in Internet Explorer

References[edit]

↑ "Simplify Single Sign-on Using ADFS". Microsoft Technet. Retrieved 24 September 2013.
↑ "ReportViewingUrl". MSDN Library. Retrieved 24 September 2013.
↑ "BizTalk Server 2010 Administrator Training Kit". Microsoft Download Center. Retrieved 24 September 2013.
↑ "AdventureWorks Sample OLTP Database". MSDN Library. Retrieved 24 September 2013.
↑ "PerformancePoint Server 2007 Sample: Planning Data". Microsoft Download Center. Retrieved 24 September 2013.
↑ "ISP model". Microsoft Technet. Retrieved 2 December 2011.
↑ ^7.0 ^7.1 "Maximizing Address Find Rates in MapPoint .NET Version 3.0". Microsoft Technet. Retrieved 2 December 2011.
↑ "Blue Yonder Airlines". Archived from the original on 2009-04-06. Retrieved 24 September 2013. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
↑ "Blue Yonder Airlines". Archived from the original on 2009-04-06. Retrieved 24 September 2013. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
↑ "Hyperlink Control". Microsoft Technet. Archived from the original on 26 September 2013. Retrieved 24 September 2013. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
↑ ^11.0 ^11.1 "Download a File in Visual Basic". MSDN Library. Retrieved 24 September 2013.
↑ "XmlSerializerNamespaces Class". MSDN Library. Retrieved 19 February 2017.
↑ "Microsoft Lync Server 2010". Microsoft. Retrieved 2 December 2011.
↑ "PerformancePoint Server 2007 Contoso Demo Data". Microsoft Download Center. Retrieved 24 September 2013.
↑ "getaddrinfo function (Windows)". MSDN Library. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
↑ "CRONUS International Ltd. Demonstration Database". MSDN Library. Retrieved 8 March 2017.
↑ "How to Uninstall or Reinstall the Sample Company in Microsoft Dynamics GP When You are Using SQL Server or MSDE". Microsoft.
↑ "Update the picture on the Electronic Business Card to match the contact picture". Microsoft Office. Retrieved 10 September 2014.
↑ https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.diagnostics.processstartinfo.windowstyle?view=netframework-4.7.2

External links[edit]

Microsoft Technet article on fictional companies

This article "List of fictional Microsoft companies" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:List of fictional Microsoft companies. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

[1] "Simplify Single Sign-on Using ADFS". Microsoft Technet. Retrieved 24 September 2013.

[2] "ReportViewingUrl". MSDN Library. Retrieved 24 September 2013.

[3] "BizTalk Server 2010 Administrator Training Kit". Microsoft Download Center. Retrieved 24 September 2013.

[4] "AdventureWorks Sample OLTP Database". MSDN Library. Retrieved 24 September 2013.

[5] "PerformancePoint Server 2007 Sample: Planning Data". Microsoft Download Center. Retrieved 24 September 2013.

[6] "ISP model". Microsoft Technet. Retrieved 2 December 2011.

[Microsoft_Technet-7] 7.0 ^7.1 "Maximizing Address Find Rates in MapPoint .NET Version 3.0". Microsoft Technet. Retrieved 2 December 2011.

[8] "Blue Yonder Airlines". Archived from the original on 2009-04-06. Retrieved 24 September 2013. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)

[9] "Blue Yonder Airlines". Archived from the original on 2009-04-06. Retrieved 24 September 2013. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)

[10] "Hyperlink Control". Microsoft Technet. Archived from the original on 26 September 2013. Retrieved 24 September 2013. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)

[xml-11] 11.0 ^11.1 "Download a File in Visual Basic". MSDN Library. Retrieved 24 September 2013.

[VB-12] "XmlSerializerNamespaces Class". MSDN Library. Retrieved 19 February 2017.

[13] "Microsoft Lync Server 2010". Microsoft. Retrieved 2 December 2011.

[14] "PerformancePoint Server 2007 Contoso Demo Data". Microsoft Download Center. Retrieved 24 September 2013.

[15] "getaddrinfo function (Windows)". MSDN Library. Retrieved 18 June 2018.

[16] "CRONUS International Ltd. Demonstration Database". MSDN Library. Retrieved 8 March 2017.

[17] "How to Uninstall or Reinstall the Sample Company in Microsoft Dynamics GP When You are Using SQL Server or MSDE". Microsoft.

[18] "Update the picture on the Electronic Business Card to match the contact picture". Microsoft Office. Retrieved 10 September 2014.

[19] ttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.diagnostics.processstartinfo.windowstyle?view=netframework-4.7.2

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List of fictional Microsoft companies

Companies[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

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