[dav-id]

I don't have the full picture here but by moving away from an Excel format you are also potentially taking away a lot of control they have themselves over managing the data and working the data which Excel is extremely good at with little to no programming.

[omni]

Your point is true generally, but I have yet to use a version of Excel that can handle multiple gigabytes of data without serious performance degradation and probably a lot of crashes.

[cosmie]

Which would matter, if businesses cared. I spend 4 days every month compiling a 1.5GB, Excel-based report. 80% of that time is spent with Excel frozen up and me playing on my phone, hoping that when Excel unfreezes it doesn't crash.

I suggested porting the process to Access with an Excel-based front end, which would cut the compilation time down to 4 hours at the most. I was denied due to the fact that whomever supports it after me will more than likely not have Access experience, and told to continue with the 4 days of hours-long freeze ups.

Corporate life for you, I guess.