"funcle" <nospamclough (AT) funcle (DOT) freeserve.co.uk> wrote

The 2 best resources about Excel Add-Ins on the Net that I know are:

1. www.olapreport.com/new.htm#spreadsheets - very very good, but for
subscribers only
2. http://www.johnkeeley.com/articles.htm - pretty good and free

I also added more relevant newsgroups, which are frequented by the Excel
Add-Ins vendors - they can tell you more about their products.

HTH,
Mosha
--
==================================================
Mosha Pasumansky - www.mosha.com/msolap
Development Lead in the Analysis Server team
All you need is love (John Lennon)
Disclaimer : This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and
confers no rights.
==================================================

There are lots of add-ins and Nigel Pendse did a good job in his
report of explaining what are the differentiators and if you look at
his and John Keeleys postings you will get a feel for the main
players.

In terms of costs and what I come across frequently in competitive
situations this is what I know.

At the sub 100 GBP mark - take a look at XLCubed Explorer which offers
a lot more than Rubicon ( I would say that though so take a look
yourself). We recently decided to launch XLCubed Explorer and its
target market is those making do with Pivot Tables but aren't that
happy and want to do adhoc analysis. Our focus has been to produce
something which is fast, easy to use, great value. It has drag/drop
and some pretty advanced features for a tool at this price.

At the greater than £250 per seat cost in major corporate customers we
come up against IntelligentApps and MIS Plain which like XLCubed are
full featured OLAP Tools within excel - allowing in differing ways the
ability to create disjoint reports, cell level independence, advanced
drilling, writeback, drill through.

Hope that this helps.

You can download them and take a look which would be my
reccomendation.


Thanks

Mark Scanlon
XLCubed

Ps. I think you can buys nigel's report seperately now at
http://www.optimamedia.co.uk/Busines...EPMISOLX030801

Another source is O2OLAP for Excel which at present is not covered by both
of the sites mentioned by Mosha. Our experience in the OLAP industry extends
back to 1991 when my company Dimension Software helped bring TM1 to the UK
market. We have only concentrated on the Microsoft environment since seeing
the beta of version 2000 in April 1999. Up until this time the platform was
not appropriate for us. The Microsoft environment is the best and most
powerful environment for OLAP as evidenced by the functionality of O2OLAP
for Excel. We cover 95% of the functionality detailed in the other sites for
the MS platform and a lot more. We are not just a browser, which most of the
products are.

At this point, we would like to thank those experienced OLAP users who have
been driving O2OLAP to the limits of the MS environment over the last couple
of months. Thank you as this has helped get our product to a new level of
flexibility, speed and functionality.

O2OLAP is totally independent of business interests and factors that affect
and skew the OLAP recommendations on the market at present. Again my best
advice to companies is to try the products to see the functionality
available. There are various factors that affect all products and
representations that skew a products image should be considered. I have seen
a few comments on web sites and on discussion boards that have not been
justified against the products. You have to start to wonder why?

The Microsoft product is great for financial and analytical solutions. This
is contrary to representations on various discussion boards, web sites and
from OLAP advisors. Seeing and understanding the product environment goes a
long way to making up your mind.

I will respond to responses to valid email and domain names, i.e. not
hotmail and the likes.

Howard Taylor
Howard.Taylor (AT) o2olap (DOT) com
www.o2olap.com


"Mosha Pasumansky [MS]" <moshap (AT) microsoft (DOT) com> wrote

The only reason o2olap isn't mentioned on my website is Howard won't
give me a copy.

I asked him for a copy sometime ago when I was compiling my
functionality tables.

For the last two years I have been searching for the 'best' Excel
add-in for AS.
'Best' is always going to have a subjective element to it.
But I can honestly say that I have tried to be as objective as
possible.

I do take exception to inferences that I haven't been fair.
I have shared my limited knowledge for free.

However, this gives me the opportunity to inform the newsgroup that my
independence will be ending as of 1st Oct as MIS have offered me a job
as a consultant.

Any postings from then on will state that I work for MIS.

Who knows, maybe at a later date I can return to offering free advice.

Regards,

John

www.johnkeeley.com



"Howard Taylor [O2OLAP]" <Howard.Taylor (AT) o2olap (DOT) com> wrote

Mark

I think it only fair the true picture get given. Below is an extract form
John Keeley's email to me on the 27 August. With his announcement today that
he is going to MIS we have been justified by our decision not to send John a
copy of O2OLAP.

"I'm conscious that neither my website nor my newsgroup postings make hardly
any reference to your product. I can't do this until I've looked at it
myself & assessed the functionality. From what you've shown me it looks
good; especially the dynamic narratives. ..... I see my website as
encouraging the better BI solutions & as a counter balance to the marketing
hype of some of the big boys, ... This adds up to AS with Excel add-ins.
This should include your product; don't you think?"

Subsequent to this we have even stepped up another gear.

I will be responding in a separate thread to the coverage of Nigel Pendse
add-ins to Excel and why O2OLAP will NOT be submitting this to him and the
domain www.olapreport.com. This will detail my interaction with Nigel since
I entered the OLAP market in 1991. Recent direct slants from Nigel
subsequent to some criticism on some coverage has disappointed me but does
not surprise me.

Regards
Howard Taylor
Howard.Taylor (AT) o2olap (DOT) com
www.o2olap.com


"MPS" <mark.scanlon (AT) xlcubed (DOT) com> wrote

asp?ctgry=Technology%5FManagement&productid=REPMIS OLX030801