Microsoft appears to move on from its most loyal ‘customers’ – Contoso and Fabrikam

Microsoft appears to have moved on from two of its most loyal and enthusiastic "customers". The firms Redmond has shunned are called “Contoso” and “Fabrikam”, which for decades served as the subject of fictional case studies used in product demos and educational material. Microsoft describes Contoso as “a multinational business with its headquarters in Paris. The company is a manufacturing, sales, and support organization with more than 100,000 products.” Whatever Contoso’s needs, Microsoft’s products are a perfect fit. Every project the company runs with Microsoft products and partners finishes on time, within budget, and delivers amazing return on investment. Contoso’s configuration changed over the years to make it an ideal customer for whatever Microsoft was selling at the time. Your correspondent first encountered it in the early 2000s when Microsoft was trying to position Windows Server and SQL Server as worthy competitors to UNIX and Oracle, respectively. These days, Contoso is more interested in cloud and AI – which its spinout supermarket happily adopted. As the confected corporation evolved, Microsoft even invented a few team members such as marketing manager Megan Bowen. The company has had various websites and social media accounts, some of them knowing homages and others semi-official. Fabrikam is an online fashion retailer and still has a website. Microsoft sometimes made Contoso and Fabrikam partners, as in this learning guide for BizTalk server. Microsoft exec finds AI cynicism 'mindblowing' How to get free software from yesteryear's IT crowd – trick code into thinking it's running on a rival PC Ignite awash with agents as Microsoft triples down on AI Microsoft blanks out BSODs on public displays with new ‘Digital Signage mode’ At its recent Ignite event, Microsoft introduced a new fake brand called “Zava,” a retailer which “specializes in intelligent athletic apparel." Whatever that is. Zava already seems to be diversifying: This Microsoft GitHub repo describes “Zava DIY ... a Washington State-based home improvement retailer with 8 locations (7 physical stores + online), complete with seasonal variations, realistic customer behavior patterns, and comprehensive product catalog covering tools, lumber, electrical, plumbing, and garden supplies.” The name Zava is also popping up in a few technical docs. Whatever Zava is, some members of the Microsoft ecosystem have assumed it’s the replacement for Contoso and Fabrikam. The Register has seen a few posts mourning the passing of the old fake companies, but some in the Microsoft ecosystem are already backing Zava. “For decades, Contoso and Fabrikam have been the beloved fictional companies in Microsoft’s demos, training, and documentation showcasing everything from identity management to cloud solutions,” wrote Deloitte senior solution advisor Saif Ali Khan. “But change is here. Zava brings fresher, modern narratives aligned with AI and cloud-native technologies.” Microsoft describes Zava as a “frontier” company, the software giant’s term for businesses that go all-in on agentic AI. Which might be necessary, given Contoso and Fabrikam both went through digital transformations which didn’t save them from their apparent fates as obsolete fake brands. ®