...the rest of the pack snipping and biting at your heals. :-)
As with any competitive situation in business your competitors are rarely accurate when they describe your functionality to potential customers. I have heard tons of claims over the past year about Project Server that range from the honest mistake to the sadly misinformed to the outright lie.
Honest Mistake:
Project Server 2003 REQUIRES Windows Server 2003.
I can see where people get this one. Windows Sharepoint Services must run on a Windows Server 2003 machine. So if you will be using Project Server 2003 with WSS then you do need to have a machine running Windows Server 2003. But even in this case the machine where Project Server 2003 is running can still be Windows Server 2000.
Sadly Misinformed:
Project Server 2003's licensing is cheaper but it has "hidden" costs of SQL CALs that make it more expensive.
Im not 100% sure if this is people just not knowing or trying to be tricky. Sure Project Server requires you to own SQL CALs. But so will 75% of the other PM solutions out there and 20% of the rest will require Oracle licenses (the rest run on MySQL or some other open source db or another). The database has to be served by something!
Outright Lie:
Project Server does not have a web services backend to allow for customization.
OK in fairness this MIGHT be just a function of being misinformed. But someone in the PM software business would have to have had their head firming planted in the sand to have missed the FACT that Project Server has this thing called the PDS (Project Data Service) that is a SOAP/XML web services API. Sure it has not exactly been advertised on the Super Bowl but you would have had to try hard to miss it if you were researching new features of Project Server 2002 or 2003.
The Moral:
If you are evaluating Project Server or are just starting to look around at PM software do your own homework. If you want to know about Primavera's solution DO NOT take MY word for it. If you want to know about Project Server do not take the word of a SystemCorp sales rep. My opinion is certainly valid when talking about what Project Server can and cannot do. But my opinion of PlanView’s product is not so reliable. :-)
Do you own research. There is nearly 2000 pages worth of deployment guides, installation instructions, administrator guidance, training materials and Software Development Kit documents up on the Microsoft website about Project Server 2003. Now Im not suggesting that anyone go read it all. But I am saying that if you want information about Project Server there is no shortage. Nobody can accuse the Project product team of not sharing.
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