Microsoft Project is a project management software product, developed and sold by Microsoft. It is designed to assist a project manager in developing a schedule, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing the budget, and analyzing workloads. Microsoft Project was the company's third Microsoft Windows-based application. Within a few years after its launch, it became the dominant PC-based project management software. It is part of the Microsoft Office family but has never been included in any of the Office suites. It is available currently as a cloud-based solution with three prices levels (Plan 1, Plan 3, or Plan 5): or as a on-premises solution with three editions (Standard, Professional, and Server). Microsoft Project's proprietary file format is .mpp. Microsoft Project and Microsoft Project Server are the cornerstones of the Microsoft Office enterprise project management (EPM) product. History 'Project' was an MS-DOS software application originally written in C (and some assembly) language for the IBM PC. The idea originated from the vision of Ron Bredehoeft, a former IBM S/E and PC enthusiast in the early 1980s, to express the recipe and all preparation for a breakfast of eggs Benedict in project management terms. Mr. Bredehoeft formed Microsoft Application Services (MAS) during the birth of the application and the company later entered an OEM agreement with Microsoft Corporation. Alan M. Boyd, Microsoft's Manager of Product Development, introduced the application as an internal tool to help manage the huge number of software projects that were in development at any time inside the company. Boyd wrote the specification and engaged a local Seattle company to develop the prototype. The first commercial version of Project was released for DOS in 1984. Microsoft bought all rights to the software in 1985 and released version 2. Version 3 for DOS was released in 1986. Version 4 for DOS was the final DOS version, released in 1986. The first Windows version was released in 1990, and was labelled version 1 for Windows. In 1991 a Macintosh version was released. Development continued until Microsoft Project 4.0 for Mac in 1993. Microsoft Project 4 for the Mac included both 68k and PowerMac versions, Visual Basic for Applications and integration with Microsoft office 4.2 for the Mac. In 1994, Microsoft stopped development of most of its Mac applications and did not offer a new version of Office until 1998, after the creation of the new Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit the year