New vs. popular project management software

One of the most relevant and topical business practices is Project Management (PM) including its different specifics and aspects. There are different methodologies which are widely used in different spheres, for example PRINCE2, RUP, Scrum and others. There are hundreds of books explaining this area of knowledge as this is a serious science which was elaborated and documented as a result of long-term practical activities and theoretical researches. PM is a quite young science which keeps rapidly developing within different directions so innovative methods and new trends appear quite frequently to satisfy demand of evolving business environment. For example, we can say that one of comparably PM techniques is applying different kinds of project management software which is supposed to critically economize efforts and time of project managers and participants. Since computers become widely used, software developers are engaged into severe competition for users. Here in this article we are going to consider popular products against new ones which are not so popular yet, but aspiring to deserve good positions on market.

There are some tools holding their stable market share and niche, enjoying their deserved reputation and loyalty of audience. However, IT market keeps growing rapidly and new project management shareware keeps being developed and produced to compete with proven market veterans. Probably one the most PM software is MS Project which is used in many large organizations. Let’s outline the main merits and demerits peculiar to popular and innovative products:  

• Popular project management tools – we can say that the biggest merit of shareware products is experience of their developers who are at the top of industry, having millions of suggestions and requirements from their users. However, big companies, as their customer database keeps growing, become less attentive to needs of every particular client, delegating their support services to some companies-partners which undertake many aspects of relations with ultimate consumers. Of course, in some cases this may negatively influence the quality of service as well as make a pricing vary from company to company. Developers and vendors, as product gains more and more popularity, may increase selling prices and prices for their services. 

• New project management software – the merit of new project management tools is that their ambitious developers had a chance to learn from mistakes and weaknesses of their big competitors. It is usually developed to cover functional areas where proven and popular project management software has certain gaps or disadvantages. Often marketing policy of new project management software is aspired to overcome their competitors by offering more advantageous pricing and providing flexible individual attitude to each customer (possibility to negotiate). Indisputable merit is that Sales and Support services of such new project management tools usually are very attentive, helpful and accurate with each client, aspiring to satisfy his needs and retain him, what makes every client feel really special. 

Specific example of product which is quite new, but already popular:

It is very important for company while gaining popularity not to lose merits which they had while their product was a newcomer on market. VIP Task Manager is a quite new product, but due to its continuous development it becomes popular as less expensive alternative to MS Outlook or MS Project for small and middle-sized companies. As against MS Outlook, this software has similar functionality (or even better in several aspects) along with better price and easy-to-use collaboration capabilities (unlike MS Outlook requiring Sharepoint to collaborate). As against MS Project, this product can be a good solution for those who don’t want excessive and complex functionality, but would like to get more practice-oriented program allowing real-time collaboration between multiple users in terms of their duties, tasks and business objectives. This tool can be used for applying the methodologies in practice; this program doesn’t require any advanced IT skills to be used and mastered.