>>Wasn't Microsoft Access basically that?

>No because the datagrid in MS Access is too rigid and doesn't have the extensive slice-&-dice features of MS Excel.

i'm not saying it worked or worked well, but i'm pretty sure the point of Access in the office suite was so that you could access Access (get the clever marketing?) data from within Excel and then do all the excel things you were used to.

anyone know if that worked or didn't? DDE and all those other projects were always pursuing this as a dream