At two conferences this week in Seattle, Microsoft showed and detailed the next versions of Microsoft Office Visio, its business diagramming program, and Microsoft Office Project, its project-management software (see
Microsoft also said it completed its acquisition of related project-management technology from New York-based UMT, known for its
Portfolio Management Solutions .
Last week at the Holland Rational User Group, an IBM Rational speaker told us about
Rational Portfolio Manager, the first upgrade of the product originally developed by Systemcorp (acquired by IBM late 2004). In this upgrade, Portfolio Manager is integrated with Rational Method Composer and the Rational Team Unifying Platform (TUP).
Oberg (IBM Rational vice president of marketing)said Microsoft's UMT acquisition is a recognition that project and portfolio management is taking a bigger role in the minds of company executives. He believes, of course, that IBM has a year's head start on Redmond.