The Gap in the Market

Since the inception of the spreadsheet, there has been a significant gap between the spreadsheet and development tools. Users love the simplicity and ease of spreadsheets; whereas developers love the flexibility and power of programming tools. The gap has been a wearisome battleground between users and software developers. A huge opportunity has existed for over three decades.

When it comes to automating a business activity, there are only three options. First, find an off-the-shelf, pre-developed, rigid application which might come close to your business needs. Second, hire a team of software developers with years of education and experience, and commence developing a custom application. Or, third, use a spreadsheet. The first two options are daunting because of the cost, effort and risk involved. And, spreadsheets have serious limitations. The gap is huge between using a spreadsheet or selecting either an off-the-shelf application or developing one. This is why so many businesses try to use spreadsheets to address specific business activities — because no other product is available when it comes to providing immediate results with little effort.

A spreadsheet is a neat little suitcase of forms and data. It’s simple, intuitive and productive. The spreadsheet is productive because the user can perform nearly all activities in a single environment. A user can set up a simple application immediately with little or no education, and later add more depth and functionality as knowledge expands. It is an excellent tool for the learn-as-you-go approach. This is why the spreadsheet continues to rule the day in nearly all companies, from the smallest to the largest corporations. The spreadsheet is king.

However, as most know, the spreadsheet has serious limitations and problems. To name a few:

• The number of columns and records are limited.
• There is only one way to view records (or rows).
• You cannot toggle between multiple records and a single record layout for a specific row.
• You cannot define hierarchical data where a child record relates to a parent record.
• You cannot group columns together.
• You cannot collapse or expand groups of columns.
• Column labels must be manually created and managed.
• Automatic functions like subtotals, averaging, counts, etc., are limited.
• Data validation, control and security are also limited.
• Data is not stored in a central repository like a relational database. Therefore, data cannot be accessed and edited by more than one user at a time.
• A spreadsheet is an island of data to itself, and exposes companies to a decentralized and fragmented data environment.

There have been many attempts by several products to fill the gap between spreadsheets and development tools. Each attempt has ended in failure; either the product had limited functionality or the development environment was too complicated. The gap between spreadsheets and development tools still remains wide open, which is why the business community still prefers spreadsheets to address immediate business needs – there are no other options.

Fluidapps was specifically designed to fill the gap between spreadsheets and development tools. It has the simple, intuitive and productive environment of spreadsheets, but has the power and depth of development tools. Fluidapps avoids the pitfalls of the past with an elegant combination of intuitive navigation and development depth for robust applications. Users with few technical skills can become productive immediately by defining columns within data views and adding sophistication and depth later as knowledge of the product increases.