Actuate Updates e.Spreadsheet For Enterprise Use

The benefit is huge because millions of businesspeople may not know the niceties of databases or back-end applications, but they know Excel and how to use it, said Actuate executives.

"The benefit is users get information in a way that's familiar to them, but IT can maintain control of data access and security," said Nobby Akiha, vice president of marketing at Actuate, South San Francisco, Calif. "Traditional [business intelligence] tools have been aimed at power users and the analyst community. This is clearly aimed to leverage 230 million Excel users."

This is actually the third release of e.Spreadsheet, geared to bolster enteprise use. The new version adds a report wizard, range editor and query editor to let people with Excel expertise create reports that are easily updated from server-side data wherever it resides, according to Actuate.

The report wizard lets users set up and format their information, toggling between data sheet and design views as they go. The query wizard lets users point and click on relevant data sources using the familiar spreadsheet interface. The query design editor enables people without SQL expertise to set up queries.

The server-side component costs about $35,000 per CPU, or $495 per named user. The client-side designer software is $495 per desktop. The new version is expected to ship this quarter.

Callidus Software integrates the software into its application that helps companies figure out sales force compensation. "This can help companies figure out who their top performers are by product, by territory. E.Spreadsheet takes that data out of the system and analyzes it, and since everyone in the world already knows Excel, the training curve is zero," said Geoff Roach, vice president of marketing at Callidus, San Jose, Calif.