Microsoft has rolled out a new visualization feature for Excel called GeoFlow. It’s definitely pretty, and if you’re using Windows and trying to track activity over space and time, it might be useful, too. Read more »
Microsoft had a handful of journalists at its new Envisioning Center last week to show off its latest and greatest technology. Here’s what it demonstrated. Read more »
Hortonworks Data Platform for Windows, now in beta, brings Hadoop to Excel and SQL Server (and vice versa.) Read more »
The task-management market is growing, in part because users need to coordinate with teams via mobile. In this case, heavier-weight solutions like Yammer, IBM Connections, and Podio don’t always suffice. But the demand for digital to-do lists that can be shared across project teams is increasing. Read more »
In cloud and big data, the second quarter of 2012 featured several high-profile deals and product launches that could reshape the marketplace for everyone. Google and Microsoft launched Infrastructure-as-a-Service offerings, software-defined networking took off, and all eyes stayed fixed on the continuing promise of data analytics. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Microsoft plans to bring big data to the little guy, said Satya Nadella, the executive directing the company’s gigantic Windows Azure cloud effort. It’s backend work with Hadoop is a big piece, but the linkage to Excel will bring big data to the masses. Read more »
Anyone who has used Microsoft Excel since 1993 has likely dabbled at least once with VBA, or Visual Basic for Applications. Now, a pair of MIT students have created an plug-in alternative to VBA called IronSpread, which uses the cross-platform Python scripting language. Read more »
What use are hundreds of shortcuts if you don’t know them? Berlin’s Veodin has come up with a free tool called KeyRocket, which trains users in the way of the shortcut with more relevance and less irritation than Microsoft’s hated old Office assistant. Read more »
Ask a VC about big data and she will probably tell you about visualization of the user interface. We’re talking about intuitive UIs that let users visually work with data using charts and tools, not algorithms. It’s hard to do right, but the payoff could be huge. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
This quarter saw Amazon Web Services finally relaxing its public-cloud-only stance and launching services to support hybrid-cloud deployments. Meanwhile, Hadoop players moved to make their platforms more accessible to mainstream BI analysts and database administrators. A new quarterly report analyzes these trends and provides a near-term outlook. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Podio CEO Tommy Ahlers is looking to a very unlikely place to figure out the future of social software in the enterprise: Excel. Spreadsheets have been inspiring people for years to customize solutions to their needs. Now it’s time to take that spirit to enterprise apps. Read more »
Microsoft has released Office 2011 for the Mac, and we’ve already looked at the new versions of PowerPoint and Word in the suite. Now it’s Excel’s turn. How does the updated spreadsheet program compare to the dismal reputation of its predecessor? Read more »
Office 2011 for Mac, the latest version in Microsoft’s workhorse suite, is now available at your favorite retailer or Microsoft’s web site. In this version, Visual Basic macros are back, but Entourage is out, having been replaced by a new, all-Cocoa version of Outlook. Read more »
Team Effect jokingly calls its competition the “the vast swathe of online task lists…and Basecamp clones” that make up the current market for project management solutions. The claim is that, unlike its competitors, Team Effect is “fun to use.” I won’t go that far, but the […] Read more »
This is the first in a series on some of the more advanced functionality of Numbers, my favorite spreadsheet app. If you’re new to spreadsheets, or just want to make them look a little less like Microsoft Excel, this article should be right up your alley. […] Read more »
