Project Software Consolidation: Oracle Primavera

Oracle acquires Primavera to create new line of business focused on projects. ...

... "Primavera's PPM products, together with Oracle's project financials, human resources, supply chain management, product lifecycle management, business intelligence, and infrastructure software are expected to provide the first, comprehensive Enterprise Project Portfolio Management solution. " ...

Via Oracle: Primavera Acquisition

Project Software Extension

MS/Project is Dead: Long Live MS/Project

As reported in Computerworld and discussed here, Microsoft has announced MS/Project 2007, a new version that offers some usability and performance enhancements.

Perhaps the bigger news is that Project Portfolio Server 2007 has been announced, leveraging UMT's technology (which Microsoft acquired last year). It has the requisite bubble charts, strategy alignment tools, and what-if simulations. It even includes governance workflow, something long missing from the Microsoft suite. This should give the other big EPM tools a run for their money.

One thing worth noting about the Computerworld article (below) is the 20 million user base for MS/Project. Considering that the most frequently used project management tool is still MS/Excel, and that there are plenty of other project managers using non-Microsoft products, it gives a sense of how many project managers there are in the world. The last estimate I had heard several years ago was 16 million. That number is most likely quite a bit higher now, perhaps double.

Microsoft Looks to Boost Project Software’s Appeal

Getting to grips with Project 2007

Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 - to be formal about it - has been on the price list and RTM (Released To Manufacturing) for nearly three months now. And it's still hard to find definitive manuals or books about how to configure and use many of the new features. There have been a number of white papers and promotional documents released. These typically address technical installation (up to a point) and quite a lot on the server side architecture.
But best practices for how to use the new time sheet feature, reporting the new budget category costs, using the new resource plan feature and so on are elusive.
Most information is being spread through blogs, such as Microsoft Office 2007 Project Blog and discussion groups.
Microsoft does offer courses which are loosely described as 200-300 level. Information on these can be found at the 'EPM University'. The curricula for the two courses offered at the moment do not look as though they answer the Best Practice questions. For now the best source is still individual experience!