HI friends have you looked the new google admanager this is really awsome and will surely meet the fast and uprising demands from adsense publishers.. Have a look here and tell me what you think (in polls) http://www.google.com/admanager
And what´s the goal of this manager? I don´t understand. It ´s in beta now so I wait what tell other poeple...
I guess the aim is, google is planning to attract people that use openads a.k.a phpadnews a.k.a openx. Because that program is most famous and free ad management system and its free. Google is probably planning to make everyone use it's own service for managing all of their ads. edit : i guess instead of openads, it is DoubleClick, 24\7 Real Media, Atlas Ad Manager etc.
that's right move. if third party can offer google ad states for Google product then why don't google directly provide you as default. its nice move anyway...