|
Some really good things about Microsoft Project
2003 Server and 2007 Microsoft Project Server
#2: The really good news is Microsoft Project
2003 Server
and 2007 Microsoft Project Server are really cheap. Think about it, a server
application for a few thousand dollars! (Project Server 2003
was
integrated with Windows SharePoint Services and
that software was free with Windows 2003 Server.
In 2007 Microsoft Project Server the integration
is tight.)
In fact all of the software that is a part of
EPM is cheap. (Well, except Microsoft Project
Professional at $1000 per license. We think that
is pretty expensive for a product that hasn't
changed much the past 10 years. The good news is
that not everyone in the enterprise will need
that license. By the way, we are not going to
stand up and sing hallelujah because Microsoft
Project 2007 has unlimited undos when we have been living without
it for over 16 years. For 1K, we would expect
this product to be much better than it is!)
Cheap product allows you to spend more money on
maintenance and deployment. You are going to
need those dollars to get this system to work
the way you will need it to perform. The good
news is you don't have to spend a lot of money
on both the software and the effort it is going
to take to stand it up and provide you some
value.
But be careful, don't assume "cheap product" is
the same as "easy to use" or "easy to deploy."
Don't even think for a moment that you are not
going to have to spend money on Microsoft
Project Server training and Project Server
consulting.
 Experience:
One of our international engineering and
manufacturing customers has EPM it up and
running across divisions. It is basically
working for them, but they claim it cost them 10
times what they thought it was going to take to
deploy. We believe that almost everyone
underestimates what it will really take in terms
of time, money, and effort by everyone involved
deploying this system, or any enterprise system
for that matter.
 Tag:
Even though the software is pretty cheap,
don't buy more than you need. (We can see the
Microsoft reps driving our street now!) Our
observation is that people over buy because they
have been sold the perception that this is a
turn-key solution. That you can build it, turn
it on and people will do what you need them to
do. Nothing could be further from the truth. Buy
the license you need for prototype and near the
end of that phase purchase what you need for
pilot, and so on. Sure, maybe it is cheaper in
bulk, but right now there are more organizations
than you can imagine that own hundreds and maybe
thousands of licenses that are not being used
because someone sold them on the idea that they
could plan out the entire deployment, quickly
get up to speed, and they would soon need
all of those licenses. We wish we had a dollar
for every license not used in just North
America.
Experience:
An aero space customer had over a 1000 licenses
sitting idle the first time we were on-site and
they were still months away from even starting
to deploy. Our understanding was they hadn't
been used in a year. We responded by saying,
"Quick, go get your money back!" They
rolled their eyes and said, "Sure."
|
