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Project management app Merlin goes 2.0

by Michael Rose Dec 6th 2006 at 4:00PM



Ah, project management on the Mac... one of those application categories where the near-blasphemous suggestion "Why don't you just run MS Project in Parallels and be done with it?" isn't completely and utterly unreasonable. If you've already been down the FastTrack, done the Project X thing and you can't wait for OmniPlan to hit 1.0, perhaps a visit from a wizard would do you good -- the new version of Merlin shipped last week. (Not Merlin the Mann, Merlin the app.)

Merlin v1 was a promising if slighly unpolished effort from German development house ProjectWizards. With version 2, they've added more view options, enhanced import/export, built bridges to mind-map applications like NovaMind and MindManager, and thrown in resource integration with Address Book and Entourage.

A demo download is available and the full package goes for 130 Euros. Granted, it's not as cheap as a couple of months of Backpack, but it makes such lovely Gantt charts...

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Ah, project management on the Mac... one of those application categories where the near-blasphemous suggestion "Why don't you just run MS...
 

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Slippy

Has anyone done a direct comparison (features, etc.) of all the various PM apps? I am a recent Mac convert from the PC, and used MS Project extensively, and still need to interact with MS Project users, but am not sure which Mac PM app is the best fit for me...

December 07 2006 at 11:24 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
patrice Calligaris

Link for xTime Project :

http://www.app4mac.com/xtimeproject.html

December 07 2006 at 12:14 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
patrice Calligaris

You forget to talk about xTime Project, very simple to use.

December 07 2006 at 12:13 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
St3phen

Don't forget Computer Systems Odessa's fine ConceptDraw Project, now in version 2.0. It's cross-platform, only $199 single user and has 5 and 10 seat network capabilities. It sports MS Project XML Import & Export, interactive Gantt Charts, and more.

http://conceptdraw.com/en/products/project/overview.php

*I am not affiliated with Computer Systems Odessa, but do use this application.*

December 06 2006 at 8:04 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Peter van Impelen

A project management app that is missing Pert charts is practically useless.

December 06 2006 at 6:28 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Serge de Gheldere

Merlin is a great app. Novamind support was built-in in version 1, with this release it's become a much more useable and productive tool than MS Project, which I've used for years.

It shines in things like hassle-free, beautiful exports and printouts; flexibility in the ways and format to enter data; and built-in easy to use risk management and GTD-like features.

This is one of the reasons I'm glad to be on a mac. I brainstorm in Novamind, drop the file on Merlin, and boom ! in less than 10 minutes I have a great time and budget estimate for a project.

Plans are worthless, planning is essential. Dwight D. Eisenhower.

December 06 2006 at 5:53 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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