The weird & mysterious world of dummy company names!

[GlitchyZorua]

Fictional companies created by real companies. And there are more of these Dummy companies then you think! Most notably, Fabrikam or Contoso, both of which, are owned by Microsoft!

Turns out, Microsoft has a (official?) list of fictional companies created by themselves to be used example in documentations, a list can be found here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/technet-wiki/1117.list-of-fictional-companies-used-in-microsoft-material

You'll see these companies appear in the Windows Vista Tutorial, "how to use the internet", where we can see that if we look closely, we can see that Fabrikam, Contoso and additionally,  "AdventureWorks Cycles" is being used as an example!

Why do these "companies" exist? What are they for?

Looking at this dev log, created by Microsoft themselves (https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20061013-05/?p=29393), Microsoft says "Having a pool of “standard fake names” means that Microsoft samples and documentation don’t run into the problem of a fake URL turning into a no-no site."


What happens if we visit these Dummy websites created by Microsoft?

If we were to visit to visit these sites, it would redirect to Microsoft, like https://fabrikam.com/. Disappointing, but hold on!, each of these "companies" websites have their own special properties, and they are pretty obscure!!

We will be taking a look at these "companies" website and see if there are anything to poke around in.

Fabrikam
Starting with Fabrikam. If we were to add  "prod" in the url, (like this: https://prod.fabrikam.com/), we will be taken to a normal looking shopping website. Even having the cookies banner on top.



However, something... isn't right.

There are no items in the "shop",



The social links just... leads to the social media's front page.

There is a test page, in the navbar, which... leads to a blank page?





If we were to tap on the "Learn more" link in the banner, we would be taken to Microsofts Privacy policy, even scrolls down to the cookies policy.



Okay, what about the footer links? Where do they go to?

They either goto Microsoft.com, lead to a blank page, or just placeholder stuff, like the FAQ. Nothing really out of the ordinary in here.



While the website is just full of empty stuff and placeholders, there is one more thing that caught me by surprise...

The sign in page.



A login with facebook button, a Microsoft button, a OIDC-RM-Fabrikam button? there also a Email address and password prompt. Additionally, I also saw that there was a sign up now button, I tapped on it, expecting it to take me to a non-existent page, but no. it took me to an actual sign up prompt.



It's asking for an email address, new password, given name, "surname", a...
vatcode? And a vatnumber?

Before I searched for what a vat thing is, I put my disposable email address in the email prompt, and clicked on "Send verification code"

To my surprise, it actually sent an email to my disposible address!!



But I can't really do anything with it, because we need some sort of VAT number, which apparently we don't have.

So, we reached a dead end.

Contoso
No, Not Costco!

Ok, this "company" is the most unexplainable thing ever.

Because apparently there are multiple sources that make Contoso look like an actual real company, but we know it isn't.

Microsoft, you gaslighters!!!




As of writing this essay, I noticed that this Contoso "company" thing goes way deeper.

Searching for Contoso on Startpage Images shows multiple logos of..  Contoso. In different styles.



These come from logo repositories, and oh boy, there are so many of them



I don't think that's an Contoso logo...

The only explanation I could say is that these logos probably came from Microsoft Office Document Templates. Think about it. Where would you see a company with this many logos? Uh, yeah.

After obscure, and even more obscure sites, I stumbled upon a question that questions the origin of the "company" name, someone responds with the a quote that says the following:

"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"

Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21695598
Source 2: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/jhoward/contoso-com-why-who-chose-it-is-it-an-anagram-is-there-a-hidden-meaning#comment-1205

Now i think know why Fabrikam isn't used that much anymore, just contoso.

Case closed, billion more still open.

Moving forward, apparently there some LORE behind Contoso... yeah, crazy.



Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/contoso-overview?view=o365-worldwide#design-considerations-for-microsoft-365-for-enterprise

Microsoft is weird.

AdventureWorks Cycles

This is another site that is actually looks like another normal company that sells stuff. In this case, Bicycles!



Unlike Fabrikam, this "company" actually "sells" stuff.

But like Fabrikam, AdventureWorks Cycles has social links that don't work properly, has blank pages, and looks...pretty unfinished and broken once you poke around with it.


Ah, yeah. more placeholders. Classic Microsoft.


There is a mailing list, but disappointingly it doesn't work.

Let's take a look at the "products" that they have to offer.



Everything seems to be normal, except for the Reviews.... and the buy button

Let's look at the reviews, and we can see that, these are also placeholders as well. These aren't actual reviews.



Attempting to leave a comment or reply will kick you back the main page, and it doesn't post anything.


Attempting to buy something will attempt to take you to a login page.

But apparently it was (falsely) marked as deceptive site, probably due to the dummy reviews.


And yeah, that's pretty much it (for now). There are more of these Dummy sites, but I don't feel like going to through them. You are all on your own on that one

It baffles me that Microsoft didn't put a red banner saying that these are dummy sites. No actual product is being sold. That would make these sites less of chance of it being marked as deceptive, Also, Makes me wonder why these sites are so... SEO Friendly...

Anyways yeah. I'm gonna call it here. Im getting really tired from typing this long essay. Let me know if you find anything strange with these sample sites.

[milo]

Wow, great sleuthing! This is interesting stuff.

It makes sense from a design perspective to want to have these fake companies for use in documentation, and to even go as far as to establish Internet domains to keep squatters away. But to even make them look real instead of just a page saying "fake site, nothing to see here!" is super interesting to me. Especially the one that you seemed to almost be able to sign up for me. The conspiracy side of my brain makes me wonder if it's some sort of backdoor access for certain Microsoft employees... Hmmmmmm...

[TheFrugalGamer]

Agreed, this is fascinating, and I enjoy all the work you put into it! This could totally go under your blog posts, because I think it should stick around 

It is kind of weird that they've built fully (mostly) fleshed out sites for so many of them. Part of me thinks that's probably because they're being used in documentation as examples for learning, but who knows? Maybe someone up at Redmond had a slow day and decided, why not?

[GlitchyZorua]

Here is some appearances of these fictional companies, deep within the Windows Operating System!! 









And even in the windows server 2008 documentation!!!     












...and a whole lot more!!!!!