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It does the job and it enables "regular folks" to solve business problems. This creates value. Most business problems don't require sophisticated IT systems. S

It does the job and it enables "regular folks" to solve business problems. This creates value. Most business problems don't require sophisticated IT systems. Sometimes I catch myself thinking about a sophisticated solution involving commercial software packages, databases, webservers, cloud services etc. and then I remember "If I bend the problem just a little bit it fits into an Excel table with a bit of VBA glue and the problem is solved in a much less complicated way. Our scale is small so it will stay solved for years to come. My coworkers can handle and maintain the file so it doesn't fall back to me when problems arise. So yeah, stupid as it may sound, Excel is the best solution for this problem."

iasay 4y ago
Avoiding any custom software development and purchasing is the number one priority for small to medium businesses that want to survive if you ask me. I've seen a couple of them killed by software. At this point I'd rather work for a company that is held together with Excel than "domain specific enterprise software" having worked in that sector for years. Actually the most fun I ever had was being the "IT guy" as a secondary function in a small engineering business in 2001. That was amazing. I didn't have to do a lot and could concentrate on my primary role with enough distractions to make it and my secondary one interesting. We just ran a Windows 2000 domain with 9 workstations on a switch with a 512K ADSL router and it basically just worked flawlessly. Excel 2000 featured heavily. I occasionally get the urge to build out a Windows 2000 and Office 2000 box just because it was the last windows release that I enjoyed.
- cosmodisk 4y ago
  I've seen enough cases where the opposite is the case. Businesses running off Excel spreadsheets are often very inefficient, drowning in more problems than solutions and the day to day workflows for employees are awful. I'm not trying to say a small shop should go all in with Oracle or SAP, however a healthy investment in specialised software often pays off extremely well.
  - TAForObvReasons 4y ago
    Specialized software is a market for lemons. Most businesses running off Excel spreadsheets are ill-equipped to judge the vendors in question, and more often than not the net result is worse than the Excel mess.
    - cosmodisk 4y ago
      If you are an average business with no internal expertise to evaluate vendors: well of course everyone's going to spin you whilst the money keeps flying out of your pockets. Smarter companies would at least hire people that could advise on such things.
      - lazide 4y ago
        If you had the organizational expertise to hire such a person, and the leadership to prioritize it enough to happen - you already would probably not need them that much.
        cosmodisk 4y ago
        People like that get hired through recommendations. I interacted with some companies where nobody would know shit about anything tech related but the senior managers were fairly well connected in the business world, so getting someone impartial who could advise on how to proceed wasn't too bad.
  - iasay 4y ago
    You waste it on Excel or you waste it on subscriptions, opex and consultants. Or you hire someone who can shape the business processes towards efficiency with the tools you already have...
  - hef19898 4y ago
    It cuts both ways, doesn't it? Excel is no replacement for a dedicated ERP system, as soon as you need one of those get one. Excel can replace a lot of analytics and KPI software packages, and fill in gaps in any ERP system. It is cheaper to, cautiously, fill those gaps with an Excel solution (if well documented) than developing a customized ERP solution. I currebtly see people using Palantir as the default for anything and everything, only to export stuff from Palantir to Excel anyways.
- threatripper 4y ago
  > Avoiding any custom software development and purchasing is the number one priority for small to medium businesses that want to survive if you ask me. Yes and no. I think it depends on the problem being solved. Many small companies solve the same problem. For them a working commercial solution should exist. Many other small companies exist because they can flexibly solve special problems. Special problems on which the big companies fail. Mainly because commercial software solutions don't exist and the problems often change quickly. In that case in-house-IT can be THE deciding advantage that makes them move faster than the competition. Yeah, it depends on the kind of problem being solved (or not solved) which is better and sometimes things change unexpectedly making the other choice better for some years.
mathgladiator 4y ago
I share that thought which is one of the reasons I'm so excited about the platform I'm building. While I'm trying really hard to focus on being a "vertically integrated board game company", there is the siren song to go beyond board games and make a platform for business. I wrote a programming language which is like a better structured Excel with a reactive database. It's super fun to play with at the moment, but it's immature: https://www.adama-platform.com/ https://www.adama-platform.com/
- pillefitz 4y ago
  Second time I'm seeing your platform. I still don't quite understand what it does exactly, but I'm intrigued nonetheless
  - mathgladiator 4y ago
    That makes two of us! I'm reworking the marketing and landing page, and I'm working on different stabs. There are two things to consider. First, I built a reactive document engine. Imagine Excel except instead of many very large grids, I have tables, objects, and single variables. Formulas can be attached any aspect to compute things reactivly, Second, I put that document within a NoSQL style platform such that spreadsheets are now serverless. In a way, it's like a headless Excel 365. Mutations of the documents happen by sending messages to the documents (and now HTTP puts). When you read the document, you download a privacy checked version and filtered versioned (via a gossip'd view state). My new marketing copy is going to start with "Unlock multiplayer super powers" - "Whether building a collaborative applicication or competitive game, the Adama platform will connect your people to global state and logic using a low latency edge network"
    - jaclaz 4y ago
      >My new marketing copy is going to start with "Unlock multiplayer super powers" - "Whether building a collaborative applicication or competitive game, the Adama platform will connect your people to global state and logic using a low latency edge network" Not that it matters, but, personally, I cannot understand anything in that sentence, nor most of what you have on your site. Maybe, just maybe, you could provide a couple of real-life examples, if you cannot find a way to explain in a simpler manner what the platform does. In your FAQ's : >For a more detailed answer, there is an entire chapter outline what Adama is within the book. The book also has examples of some of these use-cases in action. I cannot find "the book".

iasay 4y ago

Avoiding any custom software development and purchasing is the number one priority for small to medium businesses that want to survive if you ask me. I've seen a couple of them killed by software. At this point I'd rather work for a company that is held together with Excel than "domain specific enterprise software" having worked in that sector for years. Actually the most fun I ever had was being the "IT guy" as a secondary function in a small engineering business in 2001. That was amazing. I didn't have to do a lot and could concentrate on my primary role with enough distractions to make it and my secondary one interesting. We just ran a Windows 2000 domain with 9 workstations on a switch with a 512K ADSL router and it basically just worked flawlessly. Excel 2000 featured heavily. I occasionally get the urge to build out a Windows 2000 and Office 2000 box just because it was the last windows release that I enjoyed.

cosmodisk 4y ago
I've seen enough cases where the opposite is the case. Businesses running off Excel spreadsheets are often very inefficient, drowning in more problems than solutions and the day to day workflows for employees are awful. I'm not trying to say a small shop should go all in with Oracle or SAP, however a healthy investment in specialised software often pays off extremely well.
- TAForObvReasons 4y ago
  Specialized software is a market for lemons. Most businesses running off Excel spreadsheets are ill-equipped to judge the vendors in question, and more often than not the net result is worse than the Excel mess.
  - cosmodisk 4y ago
    If you are an average business with no internal expertise to evaluate vendors: well of course everyone's going to spin you whilst the money keeps flying out of your pockets. Smarter companies would at least hire people that could advise on such things.
    - lazide 4y ago
      If you had the organizational expertise to hire such a person, and the leadership to prioritize it enough to happen - you already would probably not need them that much.
      - cosmodisk 4y ago
        People like that get hired through recommendations. I interacted with some companies where nobody would know shit about anything tech related but the senior managers were fairly well connected in the business world, so getting someone impartial who could advise on how to proceed wasn't too bad.
- iasay 4y ago
  You waste it on Excel or you waste it on subscriptions, opex and consultants. Or you hire someone who can shape the business processes towards efficiency with the tools you already have...
- hef19898 4y ago
  It cuts both ways, doesn't it? Excel is no replacement for a dedicated ERP system, as soon as you need one of those get one. Excel can replace a lot of analytics and KPI software packages, and fill in gaps in any ERP system. It is cheaper to, cautiously, fill those gaps with an Excel solution (if well documented) than developing a customized ERP solution. I currebtly see people using Palantir as the default for anything and everything, only to export stuff from Palantir to Excel anyways.
threatripper 4y ago
> Avoiding any custom software development and purchasing is the number one priority for small to medium businesses that want to survive if you ask me. Yes and no. I think it depends on the problem being solved. Many small companies solve the same problem. For them a working commercial solution should exist. Many other small companies exist because they can flexibly solve special problems. Special problems on which the big companies fail. Mainly because commercial software solutions don't exist and the problems often change quickly. In that case in-house-IT can be THE deciding advantage that makes them move faster than the competition. Yeah, it depends on the kind of problem being solved (or not solved) which is better and sometimes things change unexpectedly making the other choice better for some years.

mathgladiator 4y ago

I share that thought which is one of the reasons I'm so excited about the platform I'm building. While I'm trying really hard to focus on being a "vertically integrated board game company", there is the siren song to go beyond board games and make a platform for business. I wrote a programming language which is like a better structured Excel with a reactive database. It's super fun to play with at the moment, but it's immature: https://www.adama-platform.com/ https://www.adama-platform.com/

pillefitz 4y ago
Second time I'm seeing your platform. I still don't quite understand what it does exactly, but I'm intrigued nonetheless
- mathgladiator 4y ago
  That makes two of us! I'm reworking the marketing and landing page, and I'm working on different stabs. There are two things to consider. First, I built a reactive document engine. Imagine Excel except instead of many very large grids, I have tables, objects, and single variables. Formulas can be attached any aspect to compute things reactivly, Second, I put that document within a NoSQL style platform such that spreadsheets are now serverless. In a way, it's like a headless Excel 365. Mutations of the documents happen by sending messages to the documents (and now HTTP puts). When you read the document, you download a privacy checked version and filtered versioned (via a gossip'd view state). My new marketing copy is going to start with "Unlock multiplayer super powers" - "Whether building a collaborative applicication or competitive game, the Adama platform will connect your people to global state and logic using a low latency edge network"
  - jaclaz 4y ago
    >My new marketing copy is going to start with "Unlock multiplayer super powers" - "Whether building a collaborative applicication or competitive game, the Adama platform will connect your people to global state and logic using a low latency edge network" Not that it matters, but, personally, I cannot understand anything in that sentence, nor most of what you have on your site. Maybe, just maybe, you could provide a couple of real-life examples, if you cannot find a way to explain in a simpler manner what the platform does. In your FAQ's : >For a more detailed answer, there is an entire chapter outline what Adama is within the book. The book also has examples of some of these use-cases in action. I cannot find "the book".