Microsoft Rules the IT Project Management Space, says New Study from Info-Tech Research Group

Microsoft is the de facto leader in the North American IT Project Management software space, with 80 per cent of respondents to a recent Info-Tech Research Group survey indicating they rely on Microsoft Project to manage IT programs in their enterprise.

"The current competitive landscape for IT Project Management software appears to be limited for anyone except Microsoft. Companies are turning to Microsoft Project because users require minimal training and it brings enough functionality without high implementation costs," said Jennifer Colasanti, senior research consultant with Info-Tech Research Group. "Many organizations begin with Microsoft Excel for basic project management needs, so adoption of Microsoft Project is a natural progression."

The 2008 Info-Tech study, which surveyed more than 250 senior IT managers in companies located in the U.S. and Canada, found that IT departments have few viable options to move away from Microsoft software. The closest competitor is CA Clarity, with a mere 1.3 per cent of organizations turning to their software for Project Management support.

"Most companies want to start out with a tool for managing basic requirements such as schedules, time/task reporting, and resource allocation," Colasanti explained. "Microsoft's competitors in the project management software space promote their more advanced portfolio management tools, which is overkill for the some 75 per cent of companies that are not yet mature in their Project Management discipline. More advanced tools are daunting for these organizations since there is no process in place to support them."

One IT manager summed up the consensus opinion: "It's what all of the organizations that I've worked for have standardized on and used. I have never even seen another project planner. So really it's just been the tool that's been everywhere which I've then adopted."

Colasanti says that vendors looking to compete with Microsoft Project would need to aggressively market their entry level tools and compete on cost and ease of use. Since Project Management is an evolving discipline and it takes time for an organization to mature, vendors need tools that match this process evolution. Once an organization has matured its process, it will then look to that same vendor for a more advanced project management tool that includes portfolio management.

With a paid membership of over 23,000 worldwide, Info-Tech Research Group is the global leader in providing tactical, practical Information Technology research and analysis. Info-Tech has a ten-year history of delivering quality research and is one of North America's fastest growing full-service IT analyst firms.

SOURCE Info-Tech Research Group