Best PIM for project management?

Posted by Dr Andus
Apr 28, 2012 at 04:28 PM

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
> For example, the ?method neutral? approach of Amode is not as neutral as it sounds; if a mind map is convenient for a user, then not having one is not neutral at all.

Thanks for your thoughts, Alexander. To me Amode’s story seems to be a case of mis-marketing (mis-positioning) a product and creating unrealistic expectations. They talk about a complete end-to-end PIM solution and 300 features. However, later in the help file they tell you not to put too much info under a branch or in a single file because it can slows down the performance or can lead to a corruption of the file. So it’s clearly not for holding masses of data like UltraRecall or ConnectedText can.

Although I didn’t see references to mind mapping on the product page itself, it seems they may have created an impression that it can do mind mapping when it fact it can’t. On the other hand it can do concept mapping and flow charts (though I think VUE e.g. is easier and faster to use).

For me Amode hits the spot as a personal project management solution, which I think primarily it is and it probably should have been marketed as such. I’m still very impressed with the integration of the Tree (a hierarchical outline for work breakdown structure), the Gantt chart and the Calendar. It’s just a lot faster to enter data and set up a Gantt than in RationalPlan or Achieve Planner.

Amode told me that the next stage of development would be a cloud integration but that there are no immediate plans. So it is what it is at the moment.

>it is apparently not possible to check for updates from within Amode, as the relevant server seems to be permanently down.

I don’t have this problem. It does check for updates, there is a bar showing it’s checking, then it tells me I have the latest version. However, I can’t find the version number within the software anywhere (there doesn’t seem to be an “About Amode” option anywhere).