howard_hong l老师加的附件。 我把他转成.doc 以下是正文。排版好象有些问题。 © 2003 Giga Research, a wholly owned subsidiary of Forrester Research, Inc. Copyright and Material Usage Guidelines December 10, 2003 Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Solution Has Potential, but Won’t Tilt the Services Automation Market Margo Visitacion Catalyst New product release Question Is Microsoft Project 2003 a viable enterprise product? Answer Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management Solution (EPMS) continues the evolution of Project from a pure desktop scheduler to a full-fledged enterprise project management tool. While the product will carve a definite niche for midsize companies (100 to 500 employees), it will not overtake the services automation market addressing large corporations’ needs. The individual pieces of EPMS are strong: The product has improved functions required for moving into the enterprise market such as collaboration, document management and resource allocation. Microsoft provided needed usability fixes, transferred more functionality to the server for browser access and increased reporting depth. All of these discrete changes are positive, yet Microsoft has not yet succeeded in delivering a completely integrated EPMS solution. Companies considering EPMS must realize that, while it may be a competent solution, it’s not an inexpensive alternative to a services automation solution. Strengths and Weaknesses Functionally, the product has a lot going for it. Collaboration, leveraging Windows SharePoint Services, is probably the biggest improvement in taking Project 2003 to the enterprise; having the portal in place makes document management a much simpler process. Users no longer have to rely on attachments or clumsy document storage, check in/check out is smooth and versioning now provides a visible audit trail for quality management. Risk and issue management functionality is new in Project Professional and provides a much needed improvement to round out collaborative project management. Resource management is still one of the product’s particular strengths. TeamBuilder, once the domain of individual project managers, is now available at the browser level, making centralized resource management a greater possibility. Web access at the team level has a cleaner interface for reporting time and project information. Another big usability win is the integration with Outlook. This allows tasks to be exported to the Outlook calendar as well as pulling in non-project information from Outlook to manage availability in Project. User experience is improving: Creating and managing projects is smoother. However, even with more functionality moved to the server, Project 2003 still hovers between desktop and enterprise application in its approach to project management. Project information is stored at the server level, making resource allocation, light planning and collaboration more efficient in a distributed environment. However, with project control still at the desktop, concurrent users cannot access schedules for updates. Planning offline isn’t the issue nor is retaining project control; in fact, it’s preferable for power users. However, in day-to-day collaboration, it is limiting. Enterprise applications, while still restrictive for changing critical information, will allow concurrent updates and schedule access while the power user retains control for final updates. IdeaByte ♦ Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Solution Has Potential, but Won’t Tilt the Services Automation Market RIB-122003-00044 © 2003 Giga Research, a wholly owned subsidiary of Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction or redistribution in any form without the prior permission of Forrester Research, Inc. is expressly prohibited. This information is provided on an “as is” basis and without express or implied warranties. Although this information is believed to be accurate at the time of publication, Forrester Research, Inc. cannot and does not warrant the accuracy, completeness or suitability of this information or that the information is correct. Giga research is provided as general background and is not intended as legal or financial advice. Forrester Research, Inc. cannot and does not provide legal or financial advice. Readers are advised to consult their attorney or qualified financial advisor for legal and/or financial advice related to this information. Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Solution Has Potential, but Won’t Tilt the Services Automation Market ♦Margo Visitacion Some functional immaturities remain, primarily in portfolio analysis and management; capabilities here are still more tactical than strategic. The data is there, but not easily viewed without some custom report building. Project 2003 needs to have a live portfolio dashboard (it’s now handled via reporting views) for it to sit on desktops more senior than a project or development manager. Integration between Project and the rest of the Office suite is still evolving — out of the box, Web access users get a predefined view using WebParts; custom views require development using SharePoint. Outlook calendar integration is great, but it needs to extend to tasks to be as seamless as promised; integration here would provide a workaround to the current clunky way Project 2003 handles non-project tasks. SQL server remains the main repository, and that can limit large-scale implementations. Using Oracle for storing project information is supported, but it will not work with Project Server. This means Oracle shops cannot get the enterprise functionality unless they convert to SQL, and replicating multiple SQL servers for large implementations may be cost prohibitive. The major weakness is the perception that Microsoft Project is an inexpensive alternative to other enterprise solutions. Initial pricing ranging from $133 to $999 per set and $757 for Project Server makes investing in EPMS look like a great deal. But to get the whole value of EPMS, companies must either invest in or upgrade other Microsoft products, such as Windows Server 2003, Office 2003, Outlook 2003 and SharePoint Portal Server 2003. Add in Office 2003 and the various connector kits that allow external users, and the total investment is more likely to run in the $150,000 range. Without these other products in place, users lose the ability to export task information to Outlook, to have project managers see entire resource calendars without manual updates or to have extended document management capabilities. Companies lacking these other products or running older versions are not going to get much benefit outside having a client/server application with some Web access. However, if the other components are planned or are in place, investing in EPMS makes sense. With all of the new integrations, implementations become more complicated. While it’s entirely possible to implement on your own, it’s not recommended since much of the role-based access requires careful integration between the various servers. EPMS, with all of its components, is a complex application. Customers should use one of the certified partners to deal with integration issues, business process workflow design and training. Recommendations Even with these limitations, it’s important to remember that this is still a relatively new product in a market with great potential. Microsoft Enterprise Project isn’t right for everyone, but is well suited to a small to moderate-size (e.g., 100- to 500-user) organization that views project management as the domain of the individual business units or departments. Upgrade to EPMS only if you have upgraded or are planning to upgrade to Windows Server 2003, Outlook 2003 and SharePoint Portal Server. With Windows 2000 server and Outlook 2000, you will see some, but not all, of the improved features of EPMS 2003. If your company’s project management practices are still immature, stick with Project Standard on the desktop; it’s still the most pervasive planning application on the market and with more than a million licenses, Project Standard will be around for quite a while. When you formalize planning practices and require time tracking, then consider upgrading to EPMS. IdeaByte ♦ RIB-122003-00044 ♦www.gigaweb.com © 2003 Giga Research, a wholly owned subsidiary of Forrester Research, Inc. Page 2 of 2
|