Software pioneer Bricklin tackles wikis

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WikiCalc's potential success, however, also assumes that Bricklin--who in recent years has been consulting, speaking and running his small software company, Software Garden--can effectively get the word out.

To Dennis Howlett, a British consultant who advises software developers on how to meet customers' needs, Bricklin may be too nice to handle WikiCalc's marketing on his own.

"He's got the background, but whether he can market it is another question," Howlett said. "I find him a lovely, engaging man who clearly is thinking about community in deep meaningful ways. That kind of doesn't go very well with marketing in my experience. Marketing types need to be hard-asses."

Still, Howlett is a fan of WikiCalc and said that while the software won't replace Excel in the workplace, it could well meet the needs of a number of different constituencies.

"Dan's trying to do some really interesting things with this," he said. "He's trying to make it pretty AJAX-y, but he's also trying to keep it relatively simple, so it'll meet the needs of people who only need to do simple things."

Further, because the software is open source--it will be generally available at no cost under a general public license, while corporations will be able to buy it under a traditional license--Howlett expects to see people using it in a number of creative ways.

He said, for example, that WikiCalc could be used in accounting environments to provide transaction reporting tools for which Excel wasn't built.

"WikiCalc is a way of solving that from a developer perspective," he said, "because they can simply suck the transaction data straight into the (spreadsheet) and that avoids at least one if not two steps."

Howlett also said he believes WikiCalc could be used to break down the barriers between finance and sales departments by making it easy to collaborate on data.

"So it means that the finance guy can be a help to the sales guy," he said. "They've always been like enemies, and now they can be friends."

In any case, Bricklin is excited about WikiCalc--which he is spending most of his time on these days--and believes the software is going to show the world that the Web is the place where productivity tools will be heading in the years ahead.

"This isn't Excel, any more than a wiki is Word," he said. "But I think it shows where things might be going. Just like some of the online e-mail (applications) may have been a subset of what's available in client-based e-mail, there are some things you should do on the server side."

CNET News.com's Ina Fried contributed to this report.

[kbclancy]

Check out Jotspot Tracker

Another ajax-y online spreadsheet tool. i've been using it for a month or so for a group project and its great.

It'll be interesting to see the similarities/differences between these two tools.

[Don_Dodge]

Microsoft Office Live should do a WikiCalc too

WikiCalc is just the tip of the iceberg. This metaphor could be extended to any authoring tool or collaboration application. Dan Bricklin may develop more applications, or others in the open source world may innovate on the concept.

Microsoft Office Live will have lots of basic applications for small businesses. A WikiCalc like service would be a good idea. This is an area ripe for innovation. The focus will be on simple 80% solutions to everyday problems. The UIs will be intuitive, web based, and collaborative.

I wrote a blog on WikiCalc and Office Live today. See http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2006/02/wikicalc_from_t.html

[t8]

Wow

That would be real innovation from Microsoft. The world holds it's collective breath.

Check out BadBlue as well

Couple of versions that share Excel workbooks using native Excel as the backend... no conversions or lost functionality (IIS version and built-in server).

http://badblue.com/helpxls.htm

[Captain_Spock]

Where In The World Is IBM's "LOTUS KONA"...

... "WikiCalc is a way of solving that from a developer perspective," he said, "because they can simply suck the transaction data straight into the (spreadsheet) and that avoids at least one if not two steps."

Howlett also said he believes WikiCalc could be used to break down the barriers between finance and sales departments by making it easy to collaborate on data.

"So it means that the finance guy can be a help to the sales guy," he said. "They've always been like enemies, and now they can be friends." ; as the Lotus Kona story goes, "One overriding theme - Lotus has taken the Internet to heart and is upgrading all its software to make it as Net-friendly as possible.

"We're really serious about this stuff," said Lotus VP Mike Zisman, at a Java strategy briefing. Lotus appears fully committed to what's become the standard programming language of the Internet with some 300 Java program developers on board along with hundreds more at parent company IBM.

In many ways, the Java-based Kona, demonstrated for the first time at the conference, resembles a cut-down version of Lotus SmartSuite. This is the company's flagship group of applications that includes programs such as the 1-2-3 spreadsheet and WordPro word processor. However, instead of whittling down SmartSuite, Lotus built Kona from the ground up". Since it can be easily noted from this article -- "Lotus brews potent Java with Kona" http://www.morochove.com/watch/cw/ff70206.htm ... that Lotus Kona was already "Web-Centric" years ago; also, that "Kona applets include a word processor, spreadsheet, charting, drawing, e-mail and an organizer with calendar and to-do capabilities. The result is a Works-type program for the Internet or Network Computer (NC) that is useful yet surprisingly small"; according to the above mentioned article, one now wonders "Where On Earth Is IBM's LOTUS KONA" in view of this most interesting "WikiCalc" development and deployment! "Two" On The Web Is Company! $$$ :-)

[tcgathens]

That would be the late "eSuite"...

On my first project with Lotus Professional Services back in 1999 I convinced the Project Manager and a customer to use eSuite for the solution we were developing, and the week after the customer paid for it, Lotus dropped support for it. But guess what? 7 years later the customer is still using it with great success (web based time-keeping entry system)...

[ybd]

irows.com is my favorite

Take a look at http://www.irows.com
They have some really cool features, and the UI is clean and nice