Project Server 2002 on fast track to Web Services
eWeek | at | by Mike
Microsoft's .NET application model arrives on skeptical it managers' desks in the form of the company's Project Server 2002. Redesigning its category-defining Project application around an XML messaging model, the company has turned its stand-alone personal productivity tool into a data repository and analysis engine for diverse Web services clients.
In Project Server 2002, released in the summer, Microsoft is confronting the problem of project management tools being perceived by all but full-time project managers as redundant wastes of time. By centralizing project data stores and enabling XML-based communication among distributed planning systems, Project Server 2002 holds out the prospect of being able to comprehensively account for and balance the demands on key people across multiple projects. The application can even identify the training and other peripheral tasks that will be needed by project participants and incorporate them automatically into project management scenarios.