Over a decade ago, when I was training users on desktop applications at a computer training company, my favorite classes to teach were on Excel 4.0/5.0. I taught Intro, Intermediate, Advanced, and "Power-Users" classes, so I guess you could say I used to be pretty good with Excel. However, as I moved into infrastructure (AD, Exchange, SMS), I began to forget all my acquired Excel "power" knowledge. Whenever I launch Excel on my laptop these days, it takes me a while to remember how to write =countA() formulas or how to get my pivot table to do exactly what I want it to do. Sadly, I learned recently that most people spend more time in Excel formatting the numbers then actually analyzing the numbers.
Excel 2007 Screenshot Hopefully, the new release of Excel will help alleviate that pain and put the power back in the hands of information workers. By providing enhanced graphing and formatting capabilities, dramatically easier to use pivot charts, and deep integration with back-end database systems like SQL Server and Business Scorecard Manager, Excel 2007 is not the Excel I once knew. It's better, easier, and much more powerful. The new user interface really shines in Excel and makes complex tools easy to use.
I interviewed Michael Worosz, who is the Product Manager responsible for Excel 2007 a while ago and thought it would be a good way to kick off "Excel Week" here at The IW Center. So this is the first of two prodcasts I'll post this week...this one is focused on the client application. Stay tuned as I'll soon be posting a second prodcast exploring the Excel Services components that will allow you to run Excel applications on a SharePoint Server.
Click the links below to play audio (25:11)
WMA Audio
MP3 Audio
For more information on Microsoft Office Excel 2007, please visit the Microsoft website.