Analysis of Microsoft Project

Microsoft Project is a project management software program developed and sold by Microsoft. Project was introduced in 1984 for DOS by a vendor for Microsoft and a GUI version was released after Windows was launched, with the latest version being released in 2007. Although Project is a part of the MS Office Suite, it has always been sold separately.

Features
Project is designed to primarily assist PMs in developing plans, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing budgets and analyzing workloads of different resources. It can be used to create budgets based on work assigned and resource rates. The resource definitions (people, equipment and materials) can be shared among different projects using a shared resource pool. Project Server stores data in a central SQL-based database, allowing users to display and update this data over the Internet. Project Web Access allows authorized users to access a Project Server database across the Internet, and includes timesheets, graphical analysis of resource workloads, and administrative tools.

Pros
Project caters to almost any need of a PM. It works as a task scheduling tool, resource management utility, and a project budget planner. It also integrates extremely well with popular Microsoft Office programs such as Excel and other Microsoft products like SharePoint. Combining Project with Project Server also provides a number of high-powered collaborative features that larger businesses will find extremely beneficial.

Cons
One of the biggest advantages of Project is also its major disadvantage. The numerous features of the tool may be too much for the project management needs of a small organization. Moreover, Project is quite expensive. A single user version Project Professional 2007 retails for around US$999.95 and Project Standard 2007 for US$599.95, but a 60 day trial version is available for download from the Microsoft website.

Competition
Project has dominated the project management tools market for a long time, but it is starting to face competition from open source, online project management tools such as Projjex (www.projjex.com) and Projity (www.projity.com). These tools are becoming popular with smaller organizations and individuals due to the high cost of Project.

References
http://www.brighthub.com/office/project-management/reviews/2516.aspx
http://www.brighthub.com/office/project-management/articles/37156.aspx
http://jsbi.blogspot.com/2008/05/finally-ms-project-and-basecamp-get.html
http://www.microsoft.com/project/en/us/project-professional-2007.aspx
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project/FX102464431033.aspx?ofcresset=1