Excel (spreadsheet software)

Excel (spreadsheet software)
Name	Excel
Developer	Microsoft
Released	1985
Latest release version	Microsoft 365 (ongoing)
Operating system	Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Web
Genre	Spreadsheet
License	Proprietary

Excel (spreadsheet software) Excel is a spreadsheet application developed by Microsoft as part of the Microsoft Office suite, widely used for data analysis, financial modeling, and business reporting. It integrates calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, macro programming, and data connectivity into a single application supported across Windows, macOS, mobile platforms like iOS and Android, and cloud services such as Microsoft 365 and OneDrive. Excel has been influential in corporate finance, academic research, and government institutions, interacting with ecosystems like SAP SE, Oracle Corporation, IBM, Amazon Web Services, and Google.

History

Excel's roots trace to spreadsheet pioneers including VisiCalc, developed by Software Arts and popularized on the Apple II; competitors such as Lotus 1-2-3 by Lotus Software shaped the market. Microsoft released Excel for Macintosh in 1985 and later for Windows in 1987 to compete with WordPerfect-era office suites and dBASE applications. Strategic moves involved partnerships and competition with firms like Intel, Adobe Systems, Novell, and acquisitions such as Power Query integrations; regulatory environments shaped adoption in organizations like the European Commission and US Department of Defense. Over decades Excel evolved alongside standards from ISO and interactions with file formats from IBM PC DOS and Windows NT eras, and influenced legal and auditing practices in contexts featuring entities like Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Deloitte.

Features

Excel offers a grid of cells organized into rows and columns, enabled by features such as formulas, functions, charting, and conditional formatting used by analysts at Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and McKinsey & Company. It includes built-in libraries with functions comparable to statistical tools in R Project, SAS Institute, and SPSS from IBM. Visualization capabilities produce charts and maps analogous to outputs from Tableau Software and QlikTech; pivot tables and Power Pivot enable OLAP-style analysis often integrated with Microsoft SQL Server and Azure. Collaboration features interoperate with SharePoint, Teams (Microsoft), and Outlook; security, compliance, and governance features reference standards from ISO/IEC 27001 and corporate policies at organizations like HSBC, Citigroup, and Deutsche Bank.

File formats and interoperability

Excel supports proprietary formats like .XLS and .XLSX and open standards such as Office Open XML developed by Ecma International and standardized via ISO/IEC. Interoperability extends to importing and exporting CSV used in workflows with SAP SE, Oracle Corporation, and Salesforce; it exchanges data with SQLite, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and cloud services like Google Drive and AWS S3. Third-party integrations include connectors for Tableau Software, QlikTech, Power BI, and scientific applications used in institutions such as MIT, Stanford University, and Harvard University.

Versions and editions

Excel has been released in consumer and enterprise editions across numbered releases and subscriptions: key milestones include Excel 2.0 for Windows, Excel 95 aligning with Windows 95, Excel 2007 introducing the Ribbon used in Microsoft Office 2007, Excel 2013, Excel 2016, Excel 2019, and the continuously updated Excel for Microsoft 365. Specialized editions target sectors and partners: enterprise deployments integrate with SharePoint Server, Exchange Server, and virtualization platforms from Citrix Systems and VMware. Regional and language editions support markets governed by institutions like the European Central Bank and Bank of Japan.

Extensibility and automation

Automation is provided via Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), enabling macros used by practitioners at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Ernst & Young. Modern extensibility includes Office Add-ins based on web technologies interoperable with Angular, React (JavaScript library), and REST APIs for services like Azure Functions and AWS Lambda. Data preparation and ETL features evolved into Power Query (Mashup) with ties to Power BI and Azure Data Factory; programmability interfaces include COM, .NET, and JavaScript APIs used by developers at Accenture, Capgemini, and Infosys.

Performance and limits

Excel's performance scales with hardware from Intel and AMD CPUs, multicore architectures, and memory capacities managed by Microsoft Windows and macOS memory subsystems. Limits such as maximum rows and columns have expanded alongside standards and hardware; high-performance computation often offloads to SQL Server, Azure SQL Database, Apache Hadoop, or analytical platforms like SAS Institute and R Project. Profiling and optimization practices reference tools from Microsoft Visual Studio and hardware benchmarks from SPEC; large-scale models leverage cloud resources from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.

Reception and impact

Excel has been lauded for democratizing quantitative analysis across firms like McKinsey & Company, Goldman Sachs, Federal Reserve, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund while attracting criticism for spreadsheet errors highlighted in studies by EuSpRIG and cases involving corporate failures examined by Harvard Business School and London School of Economics. Its ubiquity influenced professional certifications such as those from Microsoft Certification programs, training at institutions like Coursera, Udemy, and LinkedIn Learning, and academic curricula at universities including University of Oxford and University of Cambridge. Policy makers, auditors, and regulators from entities like Securities and Exchange Commission and Financial Conduct Authority continue to address risks and governance associated with heavy reliance on spreadsheet models.

Category: Spreadsheet software