EditGrid syncs with Excel, useful for serious number-crunchers
Today, Hong Kong-based EditGrid is launching a plug-in that syncs data from actual Excel spreadsheets, so multiple users can work on a single spreadsheet at the same time without losing access to Excel’s industry-standard feature set.
With a single click, users can publish data from Excel spreadsheets to web pages through EditGrid. They can also select and lock down specific portions of a spreadsheet so two people can edit different parts of a page at the same time (see demo video, below).
Lots of companies want to bring Excel spreadsheets to the web so number-crunchers can collaborate more easily. Google has a rapidly-improving online spreadsheet, albeit lacking many Excel features. Prolific application builder Zoho has both a basic online spreadsheet and a slightly more complex online database. EXpresso, which we covered last week, has taken abandoned Microsoft web development tools and built its own online offering.
The casual spreadsheet user, such as a soccer mom planning her kid’s teams’ practice schedule, will most likely prefer Google’s simple spreadsheet that integrates with other Google apps.
Editgrid is targeting Excel users in the financial industry: People who comprise the majority of its 45,000 active users, and don’t care about the latest gee-whiz web 2.0 company, but just want to get more out of the tools they already use for work.
Reuters Interactive, which runs an online data site for the carbon-trading market, has been using EditGrid and helped finance the development of the plugin.
EditGrid only works with Excel 2003 but is compatible with web browsers as far back as Internet Explorer 6.
You can register for the private beta here.
EditGrid is a product of a company called Team and Concepts. The spreadsheet software integrates with Salesforce and other business productivity software; companies that want this software behind their corporate firewalls can purchase local licenses.
The company has raised funding from WI Harper.
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About the Author, Eric Eldon
Eric currently covers digital media technology and business news, especially what's happening on social networks and their platforms. He also writes and edits stories about venture capital, and lots of other stuff, too. He started at VentureBeat in the spring of 2007, half a year or so after Matt Marshall left his reporting job at the San Jose Mercury News to found the site. Eric previously cofounded a startup called Writewith, that was building editorial software for newspapers and other groups of writers. The startup didn't work out, but he learned a lot.
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