Winsight or MPM software

excuse me Gentlemen (and Ladies),



P6 named BUG? I love it too...



would that mean Better; Unlimited; Great (BUG)?

Rafael



It is good to see that you have maintained your sense of humour, in spite of having to use products which simply don’t produce.



I just loved P6 should be renamed BUG.



You are so right in what you are doing in maintaining small accurate and specific critical path networks.



I ran a major defence project here in Oz, which lasted 15 years and cost approx $AUD5.4 billion. We came home on budget and delivery of the submarines, in spite of all the help we were given.



We in the Construction and Production shops ran a whole series of small (200 to 300 tasks) sub projects in Micro Planner X-Pert for the Macintosh. We ran a hierachical system based on the old Polaris Fragnet model.



It worked wonderfully well because at all times you could see the logic and subsequent dependencies in the plan. The use of EV and WBS enabled us to produce results to re assure management we knew what we were doing. It was great, seems amazing that we started that back in 1987, and yet nobody seems to have learned from the success.



We too have problems where projects are being forced to use P6, MSP and the like, but I as an independent consultant Planner & Scheduler do get to use my own product for most of the time



Keep at it Rafael, you never know when you will be able to make that change, and do what your head tells you to :-)



Raf

Raphael,



Thanks for the information; the pricing is better than all competition, an enterprise with need of many licenses should welcome the news. The 1,500 activities limit is about 3 times what I need as I use the level of detail the Contractor uses for his planning, yes keep it ssimple (double s for those who don’t get it). I also read about audit trail which is not the same as a file comparison, I believe both complement each other.



An audit trial that compiles with a standard spec is what should be specified and not brand name Primavera as is the custom in USA. This limits the options, is against free enterprise theory on competition and is forcing us to use and overpay for a lower quality product.



Primavera Contractor should be named Primavera Subcontractor Data Entry as is too limited in functionality and P6 should be named BUG. I don’t need many thousands of activities; I need good functionality for the activity count we use in our planning. Micro Planner Manager and Micro Planner X-pert seems like a better mix.



Lucky those in the Land Down Under and the UK where you can use the software of your choice.



Best regards,

Rafael

Rafael



We are now re assessed the market place and have repriced Manager. Via my UK company we are selling Micro Planner Manager at UK Pounds 195.00 plus VAT, where it applies.



This is so that potentail users can take advantage of X-Pert facilities.



Since you used Manager on the Mac, the Windows Version has gone ahead leaps and bounds and has a lot of new functionality, especially creating Logic Diagrams with RAG facility

That is Red Amber and Green, so you see the Critical Path instantly the paths with less than 10% float are Amber and Green if greater than 10% Float. The Task boxes are coloured in, unfortunately not available for Arrow Diagrams, but you can’t have everything.



I did and EOT claim in NZ about nine months back and the Judge loved the facy he could see the critical path and how it moved during the project.



Raf

Raviraj:



Also Micro Planner Manager for about $1,295.00 USD (a Toyota 4r) can do the job for me and latter if I need I can upgrade to X-pert (a Lexus LX10).



True scalability is an option to consider when buying your software. Spider Project , Asta Powerproject, Micro Planner, and MS Project all provide true scalability, your company can have many lower end product licenses (believe me not so lower) and a few higher end licenses.



Other software vendors do not offer true scalability; they either have nothing at all or some offer a lower end product that misses the most important functionalities.



Yes scalability in a corporate environment is relevant.



Piracy goes against those of us who pay the full price and end up subsidizing piracy. The best way we can obtain good prices is by supporting different vendors so price competition will drive prices down to reasonable levels. Also competition is driving up the functionalities of most. I have my own personal war against those who brand specify your CPM software; this includes Uncle Sam and their infatuation with Primavera.



We use SureTrack because of the combination of functionality and price, but it is showing its age as the rest is getting ahead by too much in terms of functionalities.



Best regards,

Rafael

Very well said and written.



However, I still believe at least, the big players should keep reasonable cost for their softwares.



As far as business in these countries are considered, it is mentally tough but not financially. Salaries u need to pay to a staff in these countries is still far less than the salaries of staff in UAE/UK/US as the cost of living is less in countries like China/India or brazil.



I have some good books which are printed specifically for SAARC countries / South East Asia and they are comparatively very cheap than the European edition. Similarly, we can have these softwares customised for each country or certain region.



Till that time, it is difficult to stop piracy.

Raviraj



What you are saying is sort of correct, but it isn’t for many reasons



I have been in the production of software for over forty five years and it is almost impossible to create any price point which the buyer will agree with in any country.



I know from experience that writing, testing, developing, marketing in the so called Western Countries is not an inexpensive process.



The US and European markets are huge and I can make so many sales that I once made reasonable profits.



Do not kid yourself that setting up in the countries you named is cheaper. Again I know how expensive it was in India to do business, as a small business I was ripped off several times in Mumbai and other major cities when we tried to set up.



There were so many sudden taxes that never appeared in the original contracts and trying to stop my code being stolen was a nightmare.



You being close to your local action probably have never had to pay "Go Hurry Money" ( Blatant Bribes and Corruption)

If we did not pay these "Taxes", then our equipemnt would dis appear for many months on end. It took eleven months to get a simple cash transaction system into place in Mumbai.

One of my partners was an Indian who was second generation UK born and he tried and tried and after three years of incredible hard work, trying to find other people we could trust we only managed to sell 150 copies. Well that is what our local agent told us. Bit difficult to check in a foreigh marketplace.



So naturally we were a bit bruised and shattered and we left.





We actually had halved the price of our software, price had nothing to do with it. The comment was your software cannot be any good because you are so much cheaper than P3, you can’t win.



How do we do it now, well we charge 100% our full retail price for the first copy of Micro Planner no matter where you are in the world approx $USD3000.00



Then depending on the number of additional copies and the country we offer very deep discounts.



Selling to individuals is not profitable, we do a freebe of our software which is more than capable of teaching a potential individual user.



Quite often they then want to use it for a commercial job for which they wish to charge their client fees but want me upgrade them for next to nothing, just about give it away.



Now one way we can solve the problem could be that we rent the software for a low monthly charge with a limited number of working days



So say $USD 50.00 gives you 25 days use, $100.00 gives you 50 days use, how would that suit you.



Thus if you had a 200 day project you would pay me $USD400.00 before you start the project. It would certainly encourage you to finish on time,



Now if your software stops and you are running behind not good for the reputation as a Planner & scheduler





So my friend from my point of view until honest business practices occur in countries, then the owner is going to ensure he gets enough from the sales to pay the bribes and Go hurry Money taxes.



But until then I guess we have to find ways of avoiding piracy and giving everybody a living



My views entirely, but ........



Raf

Hi Raphael,



What u r saying is correct, but what software manufacturer’s dont want to understand is the root cause of the piracy.



Say, a company X develop some software in USA and then put a price tag of say USD1500/-. Since it is developed in USA, doesn’t mean price tag should be constant throughout the world.



Purchasing power of consumers (Salaries for individuals) vary from country to country but these software giants still want to sell at the same price.



The office set-up cost in a country like UK/US might be very high but in countries like China, India or Brazil, it is comparatively cheap and also, (if the price is low) the number of customers are more.



So, considering the:

1. Purchasing power of individuals,

2. Set-up / running cost and

3. Target customers

the prices for these softwares must be low in these countries.



But, because of such a exhorbitant cost for these softwares, i do believe piracy will keep on continue.

Victor



OOPS,



My UK site is www.microplanning.co.uk



Sorry about that



Raf

Victor



have you telephone Winsight sales people and same for MPM, because I know from experience (well some ten years back) that they both were very keen to get demo’s out people.

What are you trying to plan?

Do you want to run Earned value?



Why don’t you download a copy of Micro Planner X-Pert for Windows from my UK site www.microplanning.com.au

We will give you a full demo system of up to 150 records, no end date. Fully working software can do everything you want in EV, but only a small project.



Happy to help you, but never ask people to supply you with software, as you may be aware it is called PIRACY AND THERE ARE VERY HEAVY FINES.



But some of our fellow planners in some countries are not so scrupulous.

Best Wishes



Raf

Victor



As a Software Vendor amongst other things I object to people trying to obtain licencesd software for free, always saying just for learning or training.



I assume your employer pays you a salary, you don’t work for Free --- do you?



If you ask the vendor directly if they have demo versions for you to learn from at no cost the answer is an overwhelming YES



There are far too many people in these sorts of postings who want licenced product for free.



We want to help each other and I know that not every body is financially OK, but there are the proper ways to obtain licenced product and it keeps every body happy





Raf