Replies to post #26125 on SPOOZ Inc (SPZI)

[truerando]

But Imperial's statement was that it is not exclusive to Excel, which is the first time I have seen that. I understand that they are using the Excel name in their marketing because of name recognition. But, if it is compatible with other spreadsheet programs, shouldn't they make that point as well? And again, why not go ahead and offer a fully stand alone product using one of the open source SS programs so the package will be totally independent of any 3rd party software?

[Imperial Whazoo]

Note however that one aspect of their middleware is that it does not need a desktop spreadsheet license to interact with. Of course, some desk side product is required, because it is a service, but that desktop product could be a browser. Now, as it was explained to me, with but a small set of code changes, the middleware can operate as a service populating a web browser spreadsheet as opposed to an actual desktop license of Open Office or Excel. This is why it has come up in past discussions that companies like Google ( http://finance.google.com/finance?q=SPZI ), who have launched a service to compete head-to-head with Yahoo's http://finance.yahoo.com/ , might find that this piece of potentially web-hosted financial middleware a perfect fit for there plans to challenge Microsoft's dominance of the corporate desktop. And conversly, it has been suggested that Microsoft might be interested because defending their desktop dominance means they probably have a dog in this fight.

Imperial Whazoo