Every ground breaking business starts with an idea. What turns it into reality is a plan. And up to now, Microsoft has had the project planning market sewn up. But not any more. Let me tell you about Projity.

Projity writes Open Source software. It feels the tools to get a job done should be available to everyone and has set about doing just that.

The company has been doing excellent business with it’s on-line SaaS product, Project-On-Demand, which has already been adopted by the mighty SalesForce for AppExchange. But this release will hit Microsoft where it hurts, the desktop.

UPDATE: Click for my later post about web-based SaaS project planning solutions!

So how big is the desktop project management market?

It’s estimated that Microsoft has around 120 million desktops using Office. Of these, 7% will be using Microsoft Project, costing around $1000 per user. In other words, the market represents 7% of Microsoft’s desktop real estate. That’s a lot of money.

So when a company comes along and offers something that Microsoft Project does for free, that’s got to be worth investigating. So I took a look at OpenProj.

An overview of OpenProj

Let’s start by telling you about something I did last week. As an IT professional, I get all the latest Microsoft software sent to me through the Microsoft Partner programme. My last batch included Project 2007. I do a lot of project planning and up to now, Project 2003 was my tool of choice.

But, hey, I now had version 2007, so why not install it, I thought. I also use Visio 2003 and decided to upgrade that to 2007 as well. So out came the CDs.

Half an hour later, The MS Project installer asked me to restart my PC. I thought Microsoft promised me that when XP came out, I wouldn’t have to waste time doing that any more. Project decided I needed to. So did Visio. But that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that each program had taken over 500Mb, that’s right. A Gigabyte had been taken up!

It could be argued that with costs per Gigabyte falling, such a land-grab isn’t important. But ask anyone supporting a corporate desktop and they’ll tell you that managing and recovering poorly written, overblown software wastes time. Time to install, time to upgrade, but above all, time to recover. Lost productivity costs money. Never forget it.

This is just one reason why on-line, SaaS working is so important to today’s enterprise. Anyway, we’re talking about local software here, so let’s move on.

I use a 16Gb partition and with my usual stuff, mostly Microsoft on it, I was now out of disk space. Needless to say, I rolled it back. 2007, Microsoft, you can keep it.

Goodbye bloatware

Just after I’d clawed back the space on my hard drive, I heard from Projity. Projity has had their on-line project management (PM) solution live since March of this year. That’s been very successful and not content with that, along comes the desktop version, OpenProj.

First thing I’ve got to say is, the download was almost instant, so quick, I thought something was wrong. But no. The product is only 6Mb. No mistake, it was 6Mb. So ask yourself, why is Microsoft’s package, which has no more functionality, over 500Mb?

Make your own mind up about the quality of coding there. What’s more, I didn’t need to restart my system. Away it went. I opened up a complex Project 2003 Active Directory and Email infrastructure project plan that I’d completed recently. OpenProj instantly recognised it as a valid file and presented it to me in far less time that Project 2003 did.

Visually, users will feel totally at home with OpenProj. Views, menus and charts are all there, as are notes and costings. In fact, there’s nothing of any significance missing.

It’s easy to forget that this is beta software. Some functionality and display options aren’t there yet, such as the ability to change currency from the default US dollar rate, but Projity is releasing English, French and Spanish versions. And with twelve other languages in the pipeline, I’m sure that omission will be addressed quickly.

Cross-platform support

OpenProj is true Open Source software, available across Linux, Mac, Unix and Windows. This means that whatever your client or project team use, they can share your view of the plan on the same software. That alone is a major advantage for any collaborative effort. Now, with software like this, using an Linux desktop is a reality.

OpenProj joins Projity’s existing software line up of the on-line, Software as a Service Project-On-Demand and Projity Enterprise. With releases as good as this coming thick and fast, I’m looking forward to what the company think of next.

Should you or shouldn’t you?

Regular readers will know that I’m a big fan of on-line working, I write about it often enough. As an on-line PM tool, Project-On-Demand does all it should and offers flexible licensing. It certainly offers the most flexible option, undercutting competitors like WorkZone by a considerable margin along the way.

But I have to accept that while the day we’ll all be working on-line is getting closer, that for whatever reason, certain critical tasks will demand specific local software. And project planning is one of them.

It’s not often I get to review a product that seems to have no downside. I sometimes feel I should say something negative just to show I’m neutral and balanced. But honestly, with OpenProj, I’m struggling to say anything bad about it. What Projity has done is astonishing. Well done guys.

The product has a tiny footprint, is stable, fast and Microsoft Project users will feel at home instantly. So, bottom line. Should you consider OpenProj?

I’m planning to use this software right away. So if you’re considering deploying project management software, put this at the top of your list. In fact, download it and make your first project plan the one to deploy OpenProj. After all, what have you got to lose?

…apart from Steve Balmer’s icy grip around your desktop management costs, that is.

Click here to download Projity’s press release…