TechCrunch missed this one though a few others picked up on it. Hardly surprising since this has been through 12 beta releases. I’ve kept quiet, waiting to see how far the developers would get before I felt confident in using it.
Much has been made of online spreadsheets and their perceived limitations. If you believe that to be true then forget the rest of this blarticle. If not then check out EditGrid. This has got so much going for it I’m struggling to know where to start. Here’s a few sparklers:
- Unlike ZohoSheet, which failed miserably, I was able to import an Excel spreadsheet developed by Niel Robertson with all links preserved and the charts intact. All formatting was preserved. See above image
- EditGrid has more than 500 functions. What? Including commonly used ones like COUNT(IF) and VLOOKUP()
- There are currently 36 chart variations though I couldn’t figure out how to change one I’d imported
- Data formats include custom types so you can make that odd data format if you want
- Full keyboard control for those number crunchers who prefer fast entry DOS style
- 7 languages
- Link to iCal for all the Mac fanboys and girls
- Link to mapping tools
- 18 pre-built templates including cashflow, timesheets, customer contact list, calendar, date tracker
But here is the coolest features of all – you can track real time price changes on a bunch of different stock exchanges. This is a Yahoo! Finance mashup that refreshes prices every 15 seconds. How good is that? You could for example create separate portfolios in different markets and track each on the same worksheet. Check out the image above to get a feel for how you could put something together.
EditGrid folk are working their socks off to get this service right and have a very good forum supporting their fledgling community of users. For instance, there was a discussion around memory leaks – something for which Internet Explorer is infamous. The team make solid recommendations that are easy to follow along with explaining the progress they’re making in dealing with issues.
If you want to know what’s in store, they publish future plans.
Finally – it’s got an API so you can link it to whatever you fancy, if you’ve got the technical smarts. One for David or Stefan? Just think about the possibilities for developing things like realtime cashflow or profit planning?
Questions: What’s the business model? I can’t see any mention of how this thing is going to make money for the developers though I have seen they received angel funding a while back. When will Mike Arrington or Sam Sethi give this a once over?
Technorati Tags: editgrid, innovation, online spreadsheets, SaaS, techcrunch
