4 ms·

Are you kidding? 80% of 'enterprise' systems involve a spreadsheet that is (conceptually) a database. Some business users use the words spreadsheet and database

Are you kidding? 80% of 'enterprise' systems involve a spreadsheet that is (conceptually) a database. Some business users use the words spreadsheet and database interchangeably. Almost every enterprise system I've build involved Excel as one of it's data sources. Users often give you requirements in terms of excel formulate etc, or ask for screens that are 'just like excel'. Microsoft has even recognized this and now offers 'server-side excel' as part of office 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excel_Services http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excel_Services I'd suggest that if this product wasn't a success you either didn't understand how end-users currently use spreadsheets as a 'poor man's database' or the marketing let you down.

andrewstuart 15y ago
No doubt we did a crappy job marketing. Also ran out of money before being able to implement the full vision/feature set. We built it a a desktop application too which I think was a mistake. Getting people to download and install things is hard.
SkyMarshal 15y ago
Or competing with Microsoft in this domain is still extremely difficult. As you point out, Excel still has very strong mindshare.
- andrewstuart 15y ago
  Realistically it was more like editable gopher than excel - or that is what it was meant to be anyway, we didn't get to implement the editing functionality. I still very much like the idea of being able to build lists from web based API's with only a handful of lines of Javascript.
  - nl 15y ago
    Wait.. what? You built something that was supposed to be an Excel clone, but you didn't implement the editing functionality? Isn't that pretty much 99% of the point of Excel? I mean yes, people do use Excel to share data as well, but most scenarios involving shared Excel spreadsheets involve multiple people editing the same spreadsheet, and then generating reports out of it. That's where the pain is, and that is what I had assumed you were aiming at. If not, then what did your system do exactly? (Also, build lists from web based API's with only a handful of lines of Javascript isn't Excel, either) Edit: I see further down you noted that your system was desktop based software. A web-based Excel/database hybrid isn't a big requirement list, but I'm not convinced you are covering a whole lot of it..
retube 15y ago
My comment yesterday seems relevant here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2714515 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2714515

andrewstuart 15y ago

No doubt we did a crappy job marketing. Also ran out of money before being able to implement the full vision/feature set. We built it a a desktop application too which I think was a mistake. Getting people to download and install things is hard.

SkyMarshal 15y ago

Or competing with Microsoft in this domain is still extremely difficult. As you point out, Excel still has very strong mindshare.

andrewstuart 15y ago
Realistically it was more like editable gopher than excel - or that is what it was meant to be anyway, we didn't get to implement the editing functionality. I still very much like the idea of being able to build lists from web based API's with only a handful of lines of Javascript.
- nl 15y ago
  Wait.. what? You built something that was supposed to be an Excel clone, but you didn't implement the editing functionality? Isn't that pretty much 99% of the point of Excel? I mean yes, people do use Excel to share data as well, but most scenarios involving shared Excel spreadsheets involve multiple people editing the same spreadsheet, and then generating reports out of it. That's where the pain is, and that is what I had assumed you were aiming at. If not, then what did your system do exactly? (Also, build lists from web based API's with only a handful of lines of Javascript isn't Excel, either) Edit: I see further down you noted that your system was desktop based software. A web-based Excel/database hybrid isn't a big requirement list, but I'm not convinced you are covering a whole lot of it..

retube 15y ago

My comment yesterday seems relevant here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2714515 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2714515