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Comment by lbatista | Hacker News Reader

Google spreadsheets have been neglected for a long time.

The sad part is that if this new project succeeded, it could catch google's attention and they will be able to launch a better version in a very short time.

They have too much power to strangle/buy any innovation. Just to let them die.

This is why I don't like google anymore.

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This project is not dead. I cannot share exactly what's happening, but some cool new stuff is coming for spreadsheets.

Please make it something that helps me spot errors, and enforce better structure on the huge 2-d field of rectangles that has been in place since the 80s.

Honestly, I wish we'd see more spreadsheet-like apps move away from the "massive unstructured ocean of rectangles" and give us a little structure - something like Lotus Improv:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Improv

mysimplegrid is a piece of attempt. Still quite linear and simplistic for now though. (http://mysimplegrid.com/)

Not meaning to hijack the post, but I am currently working on a solution for error spotting in Excel- we really feel that this is one of the other huge problems with spreadsheets. Collaboration intrinsically leads to "lost in translation" errors (see JP Morgan's recent blunder) and these are difficult to identify, especially when you are not the creator of the spreadsheet. We are at http://www.slateforexcel.com

I like it.

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