MacProject was a project management and scheduling business application released along with the first Macintosh systems in 1984. MacProject was one of the first major business tools for the original Macintosh, which enabled users to calculate the "critical path" to completion and estimate costs in terms of money and time. If a project deadline was missed or if available resources changed, MacProject recalculated everything automatically. It was the evolution of LisaProject, another project management software package for the Apple Lisa.

Development

MacProject was written husband-and-wife team Debra Willrett and Steve Young at Solosoft.[1][2] It was published and distributed by Apple Computer to promote the original Macintosh Macintosh personal computer.[3][4] It was developed from an earlier application written by Willrett for Apple's Lisa computer, LisaProject.[1] This was the first graphical user interface (GUI) for project management. There were many other project management applications on the market at the time, but LisaProject was the first to simplify the process by allowing the user to interactively draw their project on the computer in the form of a PERT chart.[5] Constraints could be entered for each task, and the relationships between tasks would show which ones had to be completed before a task could begin. Given the task constraints and relationships, a "critical path", schedule and budget could be calculated dynamically using heuristic methods.[6]

One of the early proponents of MacProject was James Halcomb, a well-known expert in the use of the critical path method. Using a Lisa computer paired with an early CRT projector, Mr. Halcomb traveled the United States demonstrating this new technology in his CPM courses.[7] In consultation with the software's developers he authored the book Planning Big with MacProject, which introduced a generation of Mac users to PERT and CPM.[5]

A completely rewritten version of MacProject, called MacProject II, was introduced by Claris, a spin-off of Apple, in January 1988 as part of its inaugural lineup of Mac office applications.[8] This was followed by MacProject II 2.0 in 1989[9] and MacProject Pro in 1992.[10]

In 1991, Microsoft Project was ported to the Macintosh from Microsoft Windows and became MacProject's main competitor.[11] However, after the release of version 4.0 of Microsoft Project in 1995, Microsoft terminated support for the Macintosh release. MacProject itself was discontinued by Claris in 1997.[12]

MacProject 1.0 is not Y2K-compliant as it cannot schedule tasks past 1999.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Tesler, Larry (May 1985). "The Legacy of the Lisa". MacWorld. Vol. 2, no. 9. IDG Publications. pp. 17–22 – via Gale.
  2. ↑ Friedman, Selma (November 28, 1984). "Apple Offers Mac Productivity Tool". MIS Week. Vol. 5, no. 48. Condé Nast. p. 37 – via Gale.
  3. ↑ Ryan, Bob (March 1984). "Macintosh Software from Apple". inCider. Vol. 2, no. 3. CW Communications. p. 49 – via Gale.
  4. ↑ Knaster, Scott (April 1984). "Mac-Inations: The Birth of a Product". Apple Orchard. Vol. 5, no. 4. International Apple Core. p. 38 – via Gale.
  5. 1 2 Zuber, Harald (November 9, 2017). "A Brief History of PM Tools on Apple Mac". ProejctWizards. Retrieved July 19, 2026.
  6. ↑ Mann, Steve (March 11, 1985). "MacProject". InfoWorld. Vol. 7, no. 10. IDG Publications. pp. 37–39 – via Google Books.
  7. ↑ Staff writer (November 28, 1983). "Pert-O-Graph links Lisa and projection system". InfoWorld. Vol. 5, no. 48. IDG Publications. p. 32 – via Google Boks.
  8. ↑ Schlender, Brenton R. (January 11, 1988). "Claris, Apple's Software Offspring, to Ship Its First Products This Week". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company. p. 1. ProQuest 398059392.
  9. ↑ Bethoney, Herb (October 5, 1992). "Claris' MacProject Pro 1.0 Is Solid but Unexceptional". PC Week. Vol. 9, no. 40. Ziff-Davis. p. 98 – via Gale.
  10. ↑ Staff writer (August 3, 1992). "Claris MacProject Pro set for fall release". InfoWorld. Vol. 14, no. 31. IDG Publications. p. 17 – via Google Books.
  11. ↑ Rasmus, Daniel W. (January 1992). "Microsoft Project". MacUser. Vol. 8, no. 1. IDG Publications. pp. 73 et seq. – via Gale.
  12. ↑ Walsh, Jeff (November 24, 1997). "Claris puts old Mac applications out to pasture". InfoWorld. Vol. 19, no. 47. IDG Publications. p. 35 – via Google Books.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacProject