The rumors of gGanttic death were not exaggerated at all

We are dead. I have just received that final notification that the domain name was returned to a pool of available names. Until that time, I kept the gganttic emial, and occasionally received requests for information. The idea of Google Spreadsheet based GANTT editor clicked with some people.

I am sorry we were not able to keep going. We made, no, I made a number of crucial mistakes. I sure hope I learned from them. I'd better, because I start a new thing.

Mistake number one was to rely on Silverlight. HTML5 is better. Back in a day HTML5 was not around but even with old HTML4 my R&D could have done a passably looking editor, which would make a better product

Mistake number two was not marketing aggressively enough. I allocated most of the budget for development and not enough for promotion.

Mistake number three was doing it too early. People were not ready yet for a complete online application in mass. Huge organizations might be ready to move online in their intranets, and those would use Clarizen. Creative types have all they need in the Basecamp. Those who use Microsoft Projects have only started contemplating trying to move online.

There are more, but those are first that come to mind.

To keep things interesting, as I mentioned, I start a new venture, and plan to do more mistakes. Keep following me on michaelkariv.tumblr.com

A a good article comparing several web Office suites

A a good article comparing several web Office suites, called Online Office Suites: The Winner Is Clear.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9007884&pageNumber=1

The article leaves aside a very important question - which suites provide the best API, which is the ability of a third party to supply addons. We at gGanttic have experience with Google's API known as GData. It is of top quality. We shall in the future look into Zoho API as well.

We are open to general public

After more then a year of development both of our products, gGantt and Trailmap are now available to public Alpha tests.

Why Alpha you might ask. Here is why. We have been in Private Beta for a while. We found that our beta testers (many thanks to you) needed more new functionality then they had problems. We were listening. We added thinks quickly and were rewarded by very positive feedback. However, in all this storm we feel we did not do a great job of testing. That is why we voluntarily decided to downgrade ourselves to Alpha upon public release. No, the application is not worse then it was. It is better. It has been used by people for as long as 6 months now. It is just we aspire to very high standards. We want to underpromise and overdeliver.

You are all welcome to use it, tell friends, blog about. If you need our assistance, please email us. If you need materials, like screen shots, for your blog, email us. If you think of a new feature, or a new product to make your online office experience better, email us. We are listening.

USAToday Article - Free office applications from Google

Everyone wants to be frugal these days. USA Today published an interesting article. Google "Office" is good enough for many, and is free.

I certainly hope for wide adoption of Google office applications. It is encouraging that major media covers it.

PrivateBeta November Release

This summer gGanttic quetly started Private Beta programme. The results clarified what features are missing and what features are unnecessary.

It also helped us find bugs. gGanttic team labored hard to fix the bugs.
Some of the problems were reported to and fixed by Google team.
Some of the problems resulted from Silverlight 2.0, the technology underpinning gGanttic, itself still being a Beta. On October 14 2008 Microsoft has released Silverlight 2.0.

Over past 3 months a large number of people sent us email, asking to join the Private Beta. We felt that next release is a good opportunity to extend our initial circle.

I am glad to announce that in November 15, 2008 we release new version and extend our Private Beta to new participants.

gGanttic upgrades Hosting provider

gGanttic has upgraded its hosting. We have moved to DiscountAsp.Net.

DiscountASP.NET is an recognized leader in advanced shared Microsoft Windows webhosting services. DiscountASP.NET is two times Best ASP.NET Hosting award winner in Visual Studio Magazine Readers' Choice Award (2007), and for the third consecutive year, DiscountAsp.Net is named best ASP.NET Hosting Service for 2007
in asp.netPRO Magazine's Readers' Choice Award.

Unlike most other known hosting services, DiscountASP.NET specializes in ASP.NET hosting and allows advanced features such as IIS8 hosting, .NET 3.5 and Silverlight.

Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1 is out

Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1 version has been demonstrated at MIX08 conference. The control and an SDK are available for download. gGanttic team has started to make changes to adapt to the exciting new technology.

gGanttic adds GMail like labels

gGanttic has been updted to include new feature - labels for tasks and filtering by labels in the Gantt chart. You can assign labels to tasks in Google Spreadsheet column or in Gantt chart Task Properties dialog. You can also filter selecting one or more labels. Only tasks that are appropriately labeled will be shown.

gGanttic upgrades to GData .NET Library version 1.1.3.0

gGanttic service has been upgraded tonight to the newest GData .NET Library version 1.1.3.0. Previously gGanttic relied to an interim version that delivered necessary functionality not found in version 1.1.2.0. Upgrading allows gGanttic team to simply the project structure and build procedure.

What is gGanttic

Managing projects online is different with gGanttic. It is an add-on service to Google Applications family of products , bringing Gantt chart based Project Management.

Google Spreadsheets is your task list . gGanttic does not store your data. All your tasks are in your own Google Spreadsheet. With Google Spreadsheet you can publish your project, see history of changes, add collaborators, export and import as Excel files and more
Google Calendar is your working time source Some project management packages require you to fill in the working time for the project participats. gGanttic connects to the calendars shared by project participants to see their availability. Every participant can also associate a holidays public calendar.
Google Mail and Google Talk is how you're notified of project events. Project is collaboration. Project managers and participants get informed about changes via GMail and GTalk notifications.