ALEXT  I am a project manager by trade working in the Netherlands on a 150 person project for a phone company. I run a low spec Apple Macbook with Merlin Project on it.

I've been using Merlin for 10 months now on this project. My teams plan has 532 Activities. I update this on a daily basis as per progress. There are no stability problems that I can see and even annoying usability bugs have now gone. The layout and presentation are the envy of my fellow MSproject users. I have to export from Merlin to them every week also. This is easy - just 'export' instead of 'save'. no complaints.

The overall project plan is larger at 662 activities. It was created in MSproject and imported into Merlin. This is done by double clicking the project file on the my mac and then merlin and the project open. Easy.

Overall, I think Merlin is not bad value for money. If you love Mac and are running a project, then you have to have a planning tool. This looks good and runs stable. I've not had any corrupt project files or crashes. Check out the price of MS Project... €400-500 and it looks shabby. Sure you can buy cheaper Mac planners... but how much is your time worth to sweat with something that is not smooth?

  
(Version 2.7.3)

MISSIONMAN  This is one of the best project management packages on the market at the moment I can't comment on previous versions, but I tested this along with a couple of other packages and this came out trumps by a long way. Great product for those looking to do professional project management.

For a full review, check out my detailed review at http://forums.mactalk.com.au/20/50959-merlin-project-scheduling-mac-ms-project-competitor-mac.html  
(Version 2.6.1)

WLADIMIR80  This is definitely the best project management software on the mac. Especially if you work in a windows environment where MS Project is used this is a way to stay on the Mac. Exchange with Project runs quite smooth in most cases.

The Software ist relatively easy to use and is very well integrated with MacOS X. And the price tag is low in comparison to many other software.

Still waiting for a network version but there will one ion the next months as the developers have mentioned in the past.  
(Version 2.0.4)

HENRIKTEKNIK  I have a question about Merlin.

My keyword while searching for the perfect project management tool is *collaboration*. Therefore I'm wondering how suitable Merlin is for projects where one person is in Sweden and the other one is in USA. In particular, I'm interested in smooth, working 2-way editing and management of the same project.

Any information and user experience in this matter would be much appreciated.  
(Version 2.0b4)

KIDDAILEY  Out of all the project management apps I've tried, this one SEEMS to be among the top few in terms of interface and stability -- but I'm not totally sure due to the item/tasks limitation of the demo. Why can't any of the project management software developers realize what we need to properly evaluate their product in a real working environment?

A limit of "20 items" is a huge barrier when you're trying to determine if a product will really fit into the way your business works. Even the templates included with the software won't load completely due to the limitation! Trying to imagine if it will work for me makes it much harder to fork over $200 of my company's money.

The Gantt layout is nice and less buggy than the other software I've tried. The Netplan view looks interesting, but again with the limited items, it's hard to see how useful it'd be for me.

The only major thing that I'm able to gleem as a place for improvement is that the assets that you attach to items (docs, notes, etc.) feels a little buried and they aren't readily accessible in all views. It also continually switches view modes when you add an asset, which is somewhat annoying.

Seemingly good interface, features and stability, but until I can actually TRY it in a real-world scenario, I really can't say if it's worth the price.  
(Version 1.3.8)

RICHTHEONE  To the developers of Merlin:

I believe you should take the complaints about language errors really seriously. This could sink your ship like a canon ball would, which I think would be too sad.

How much would it cost you to let all your texts pass through an English grammar check as compared to the loss of customers? Yes, of course, there's the national pride too. But you have to agree that it's quite nice to have a universal way of communicating between all nations in the world (or 'word' as you call it). I definately think so, and I'm a proud Swedish viking. You should be happy that language isn't Chinese.  
(Version 1.3.8)

MICHEL RICART  This version 1.1, bringing the various calendars, definitely makes Merlin mature and fully usable. I now use it as a full replacement to VirtualPC+MSProject (I know *all* MSProject features are not there, but I personnaly don't miss anything), and MPP file import works fine for me.

The interface is great, and easy to use. The developpers have been very responsive to my requests and comments ... and no crash so far.

Regarding the (minor) English errors on their site, please remember that US is not all word, so please be forgiving.  
(Version 1.1)

DIABLO943  I have been in the market for a good project management ap for a while. Since I have been MS free since 2003, there aren't many options.

Merlin looked interesting. It seems to be moving in the right direction, BUT...

The website is very poorly translated from German and is almost unintelligible. It is almost funny it is so bad. (Of course they did better than I could if I tried to make a website in German...)

The application seemed pretty nice when I downloaded it with a good layout and design. I noticed the templates were pretty lacking, but that will improve... it wasn't clear that you don't need to use a template and can just continue setting up a project. There are several items in the project entry wizard that should be options, but are currently required. Everything looked good until I tried to finish setting up a project...

Beachball! Merlin is listed as a 1.0 app. I would put it more in the 0.75 area. It needs a bunch of stability work and the inclusion of some standard interface elements. The documentation needs a bunch of work and the website needs to be translated properly.

With that all said, I am keeping my eye on Merlin. I think there may be some magic from this one...  
(Version 1.0.1)

TOM  Downloaded Merlin and it looks great. It is lacking a little in the template arena but that is a minor issue. Very user friendly and feature rich.

My big gripe is that the demo only allows for 20 activites. I can't adequately test a business product unless I can do a sample plan which takes more than 20 activites and I am not willing to fork out the money for it until I know it can do what I want.

MS Project import will be nice too which I guess is coming soon.  
(Version 1.0.1)

FRANK BLOME  Version 1.0.1 is available!

While starting Merlin from inside a mounted disk image, we had a problem with the locking of the project templates. This is solved now! It is now possible to test Merlin directly from the disk image.

The mixture of English and German in the "New Project Assistant" is solved, too. As well, we have fixed some other minor issues.

So, please give Merlin another chance ;-)

BTW: If you find issues in Merlin, the web site or the documentation we are really appreciate your help by sending us a short mail to merlin@projectwizards.net  
(Version 1.0)