on 02-10-2022 12:49 PM
It is well known in the ServiceNow Community that releases are named after cities. What is not known is how it is decided what city will be used for the naming.
Triggered by the questions and suggestions in both the Community and LinkedIn, this series will investigate possible options to determine the names. Why not "U" for "Utrecht" or a city in India? Hopefully we can figure this out together. If you have any alternate theories you would like to investigate, please leave in the comments. If you know on what basis a city is picked, also please let us know!
Investigation
[ Please note, this is not scientific research]
To investigate this, each Article will investigate a hypothesis. First the hypothesis is tested and then an alternative list of release version names is proposed.
The hypothesis that will be covered:
This table shows the Release names and release dates. These can be found here:
Release name |
Date |
Berlin |
20/09/2012 |
Calgary |
25/06/2013 |
Dublin |
2013 |
Eureka |
15/05/2014 |
Fuji |
01/03/2015 |
01/12/2015 | |
12/05/2016 | |
Q1-2021 | |
San Diego |
Q2-2022 |
Tokyo |
Q4-2022 |
Utah |
Q2-2023 |
Vancouver |
Q4-2023 |
Washington |
Q2-2024 |
Below shows some of the statistics based on the current city/version names.
Per Continent:
Let’s first see which continent is most represented in the ServiceNow version names list:
Per Country:
Drilling down to a country level, shows the following results:
May be rule is very simple.
Just first city name letter matters.
What do you mean?
SNOW versions are ordered using lexicographic approach vs. more traditional versioning number. Good marketing approach differentiating SNOW from other vendors.
City names were used to support this.
Next cities will be starting with "X", then "Y" and finally "Z". If no changes we'll see city starting with "A" after that.
P.S. Could be missing your topic point. 🙂
Ah then I think you missed the point. I start the intro with: "It is well known in the ServiceNow Community that releases are named after cities."
The articles are about why not "U" for "Utrecht" instead of "Utah" or for example a city in India?
Ok. Could be wrong but I doubt that there is a logical reasoning behind this. Will see your findings 😉
Canada represented 3 times?. I see only one (Vancouver)
Unless, Kingston & London are the ones that are based in Ontario.
Hi Sam,
The cities in Canada are:
- Calgary
- Quebec
- Vancouver (you spotted that one)
3 in total.
As for Kingston it is the capital of Jamaica. Kingston City however is local government area in Australia
My few suggestions for future naming;
#gravedigger -- bringing this post back from the dead
Hey @Sam10 - Canada could also claim Eureka (Nunavut) and Paris (Ontario) -- that's 7 for the Canucks! LOL
I found this post because I was also "weirded out" that Utah is the only place name on the list, which isn't actually a municipality or municipal region.
...unless you count "Québec" as Le Province du Québécois (PQ), rather than La Ville de Québec (Québec City), but that's a stretch.
Utah though? There's no Utah City...and TONS of cities that start with "U". So weird....they even went so far as to include "DC" for Washington, to distinguish from the state in the pacific NW.
...also, I'm very much looking forward to the "Hair Era" that is rumored to be coming...maybe they'll kick off the announcement with 'Coop playing K24 - wouldn't that be something!?!?! Think of all the fun we could have with that...Bango Tango, Cinderella, Dokken, Extreme, Firehouse, Guns N Roses, Hanoi Rocks...😅🤣
Before cities the feature releases were seasons e.g. Winter 2008 , but that locked the release cycle to quarters.
And before seasons, going way back, GlideSoft was just major.minor number releases e.g. v1.1 2004.
Maybe after "Zanzibar" maybe it could be apples ?
Starting with Ambrosia, ending in Zestar!