Google Docs – Spreadsheet.

It’s no secret, I’m a spreadsheet geek; an MSExcel geek to be more accurate. Today, I took the plunge and decided to try out Google’s spreadsheet application.

At first, I was pretty impressed. Not only did it handle all of my normal functions like sumif and vlookup, it even had a little hovering function template. It has lots of formats for numbers, though it is oddly missing the ability to manipulate the number of decimal places to display (you can do all of them, 2, or rounded to 0) unless you add a formula to round to a specific number of decimal places.

Also, there are many tables and charts that excel does not have, which can give a report serious pizzaz, or function as more than a spreadsheet. There are pictorial graphs (worms, chocolate, money all in the size of a bar chart), and there are moving flash graphs. There are also internet-savvy charts, like word-clouds! To function as more than a spreadsheet a Google gadget will produce a Gantt chart, with just task titles and dates. An org chart can also be created by listing manager’s names in one column and subordinates names in another (multiple columns = multiple levels).

However, there is an enormous barrier to using Google Spreadsheet if you are an analyst like me – there are not enough fields. The regular table only has 100 rows and columns to “T” (2003 Excel has 65000 rows and columns to “IV”, and even this is limiting, so I heard 2007 Excel has 100,000 rows). There are not many major trends that can be analyzed in only 100 rows, nor can an analyst find historical data within only 100 rows.

You can add up to 500 more rows, but no more columns. When I added the rows, the spreadsheet crashed.

I may try to use Google Spreadsheet again, in order to finish off a report. Apparently, .xls files can be uploaded into the Google application, so I can use it for my summary findings, and create some nifty charts and graphs for the ooh-la-la factor that execs are always dying for.
Are you catching this, Microsoft?