One common problem with spreadsheets is the "spreadsheet-as-a-database" anti-pattern. People try to use their spreadsheets as databases when the spreadsheet rea

One common problem with spreadsheets is the "spreadsheet-as-a-database" anti-pattern. People try to use their spreadsheets as databases when the spreadsheet really isn't prepared for that. Permanent solves this problem by using a column-oriented backing store, with no additional burden placed on the user. You can enter data into your spreadsheets in whichever way suits you, and then run scripts against a real column-oriented data store. Permanent is pretty fast already without any special optimizations. Most queries we've tried run faster on Permanent on the iPad than on Excel on the desktop. You can put millions of rows on your iPad no problem. We haven't spent too much time optimizing for these high-performance cases yet, so there's maybe 10x worth of improvements still available.