5 reasons Google will replace Microsoft Excel

By Nick Crawley on April 6 2009

When I started using spreadsheets the year was 1985 and the software of choice at the time was called “Visi-Calc”, I can’t say this with too much authority…because I was only 10 years old. However this is what I used to keep track of my savings and the compounding interest for the soon to be released 148k ZX Spectrum - I was quite focussed.

A brief history of spreadsheets

As the years went on some other favorites came and went, namely SuperCalc, Quattro Pro, Lotus 1-2-3 and for the last little while we have all been using Microsoft Excel but I argue this is not a concious decision. More recently Microsoft have seemingly given everybody a really good reason to complain and look for alternatives because Excel 2007 is truly terrible..and believe me I like ’shiny’ !

Google spreadsheets represent a clear alternative

But there is an alternative - and its stunning - lets introduce “Google Spreadsheets“. Now you may laugh, say its not ‘corporate’ or, its slow, its online, its public…if we try hard we can find so many reasons why not to use it but this flips as soon as you take some time to have a good look. Go on I dare you!

Given it has only really been properly available for 12 months and is just out of beta version it is truly fantastic.

O’ReillyXML.net has an interesting posting which introduces more features and also has some interesting commentary on data security and where data resides. Financial Nut has a more consumer view of the matter with some valid observations on using multiple pc’s.

Using Google Spreadsheets

I estimate it has around 10% of the features of MS Excel and about 90% of the functionality actually needed for a complex project finance model - I would add that a year ago it only had half of what was needed for a simple ‘financial model’. This fresh outsider is gaining rapid pace - so much so I think it is already a viable alternative to MS Excel for a simple to medium complexity transaction.In its favour Google spreadsheets…

is not Microsoft and its free
has ‘native’ sharing functionality not a compromise full of bugs
security is excellent, much better than your companies unless you work for the CIA(!)
is more pleasant and logical to use and has been purposefully ‘designed’ rather than evolved.
files are not tied to a single local user

Google still has to work on

Speed of response, but this has already improved 100% in 6 months on a simple connection
There is no VBA (this could be a good thing as most tasks can be done without)
Size of the worksheet
Keyboard shortcuts are not as comprehensive as MS Excel (yet)
Graphs in Excel (2007) are much better

Can I use Google instead of MS Excel for project finance modelling?

Its not up to full speed yet but having seen developments in the last 12 months I think that it won’t be too long until Google will be a viable, secure and sensible alternative to users fed up with having their daily modelling activities governed by Microsoft.

If your business is dependent on MS Excel this is definitely something to keep your eye on - I can’t wait to build our first model in Google Spreadsheets!