

How Many Spreadsheets Does It Take to Run a Fortune 500 Company? - malij
http://www.wired.com/2014/03/many-spreadsheets-take-run-fortune-500-company/

======
jasode
Imo, this is not a quality article worthy of submission to HN.

> Instead of a static data model, we build services around a Modeling Engine
> that is purpose built to change dynamically.

This is one of those abstract sentences that's typical of marketing hype. If
you go to their website to try and research the actual concrete details, you
get another high-level overview[1] and clicking on a potential whitepaper is
walled off by data-entry screen for contact info (email, phone#, etc.)[2].

[1][http://www.aras.com/technology/model-based-
soa.aspx](http://www.aras.com/technology/model-based-soa.aspx)
[2][http://www.aras.com/plm-software/100063.aspx](http://www.aras.com/plm-
software/100063.aspx)

Googling around for actual screen shots of their product, I see the typical
GUI type of tools for drag&drop flowcharts and process workflow:

[http://plmalpha.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/bpm-workflow-
serial...](http://plmalpha.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/bpm-workflow-serial-
parallel-paths-and-modeling-to-customize-and-extend-plm-in-aras/)

If those shots are representative of their "dynamic model-based" product, then
no, it will not eliminate "spreadsheet hell".

The article is naive about how and why spreadsheets are pervasive and why they
will always outpace the speed of IT departments. Ideas such as 4GL, or DSL, or
GUI workflow visualizers, or cloud-based tools, etc, etc will not eliminate
spreadsheets.

------
rahimnathwani
This was originally posted on Wired's 'Innovation Insights':
[http://insights.wired.com/profiles/blogs/how-many-
spreadshee...](http://insights.wired.com/profiles/blogs/how-many-spreadsheets-
does-it-take-to-run-a-fortune-500-company)

"Innovation Insights is a community blog ... Joining in has never been easier
... Sign up, and you are already set up as a contributor who can post blogs
and more."

~~~
tdicola
What a weird idea, I wonder why Wired would want to allow anyone to post
content under their site. I know it's not the 'real' Wired site, but still
seems odd. What's to stop some crazy person like timecube guy from making
their home on Wired and harming the 'brand'?

------
manacit
This read like a straight advertisement, yet I didn't hear any real solution
other than some sort of "fantastic fix". Frankly, a bit disappointing from
Wired. My car seems to come out fine, regardless of the number of spreadsheets
involved, thanks.

------
greenyoda
Excel is actually a pretty sophisticated tool for end-users. It has a
scripting language (VBA), it can pull data straight out of databases via ODBC
and it can do sophisticated data visualizations (pivot tables and pivot
charts). Its weakest point seems to be the inability to trace and document the
complex web of formulas in a spreadsheet - you can't diff the old version of a
spreadsheet against a new one and see what changes you made in the formulas.
If someone could build a tool that could do that, it might make spreadsheets
less opaque and more reliable.

------
anton-107
Could the solution be faster delivering from IT?

Amazon is capable of delivering changes to it's core apps as fast as "one
change per every 11 seconds". An average corporation nowadays delivers a bulk
of changes per every 3 months.

~~~
malij
> "one change per every 11 seconds"

What is your reference?

------
alien3d
I now develop excel add in for a customer.the reason they used to it and hard
to changed their mindset.what they thinking is cheaper and fast decision
making with excel rather then erp itself.

------
holri
well they built a system that has a "Modeling Engine that is purpose built to
change dynamically". Well exactly this describes Spreadsheets and that is at
the same time their asset and problem. Because there is no consistent and well
thought-out data model, all kind of inconsistence, integration and redundancy
problems occur. Data modeling is no trivial task. Making it change dynamically
does not solve this issue, it makes it worse.

