REDMOND, Wash. — July 3, 2007 — Microsoft Corp., a leading provider of project and portfolio management (PPM) software, today announced it has been positioned by Gartner Inc. in the “Leaders” quadrant in the 2007 IT Project and Portfolio Management Applications Magic Quadrant report. The report evaluates services and products that include the Microsoft® Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution.
According to Gartner, product depth in such core areas as advanced scheduling, resources and cost management distinguishes most leaders, and most offer a range of deployment options (for example, pilots, staged implementations and SaaS) to address customers’ varying needs at different levels of PPM capability maturity. Leaders also tend to have, not just capable system integration partners, but some core, direct PPM service offerings, going beyond implementation and support to include process-change consulting. Their vision of the IT PPM market often extends to communication and quality management, with features aimed at improving team performance (for example, via collaborative features and methodology support).
“We consider our positioning in the ‘Leaders’ quadrant by Gartner confirmation of Microsoft’s mission to enable customers to manage complexity in the IT environment and drive down operating costs,” said Irwin Rodrigues, director of Microsoft Office Project at Microsoft. “Our goal is to help people amplify their impact on their businesses by extending project-management capabilities and insight to the entire enterprise.”
The 2007 Microsoft Office EPM Solution, including Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007, Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007, is an end-to-end collaborative project and portfolio management environment. The Office EPM Solution helps organizations gain better visibility, insight and control across all their work to enhance decision-making, improve business alignment, maximize resource utilization, increase operational efficiency, and ultimately help increase the return on investment. The Office EPM Solution is built on Windows® SharePoint® Services, taking advantage of its collaboration and document management capabilities in an integrated project and portfolio environment, thus delivering a familiar set of tools to drive alignment at all levels of an organization, from executives to managers to team members.
About the Magic Quadrant
The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 2007 by Gartner Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the “Leaders” quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
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