Project 2000 Extends Team Management Capabilities

Project 2000, the latest version of Microsoft’s popular project management software, can be used to manage people, budgets, resources, and timelines for team projects. The most significant improvement in this release—a Web-based component that lets team members access and update project status via their browser—promises to offload tedious administrative tasks from project managers. Configured as a three-tier client/server application for larger projects, Project 2000 could compete with industrial-strength project-management tools from Primavera or Welcom at the high end of the market.

A New Web-Based Element: Project Central

With more than 5 million users, the previous version of this product, Project 98, commands a 70% share of the project-management software market. Despite collaboration features such as dispatching tasks via e-mail, Project 98 is typically installed only on the computer of the project manager, who must update the status of all tasks, create reports, and distribute these to the team.