WikiCalc is the latest piece of software artistry from Dan Bricklin the creator of the world's first spreadsheet, VisiCalc. WikiCalc is way more than just an on-line spreadsheet. It is light years ahead of Google Spreadsheets, NumSum, iRows, and all the others. WikiCalc is part wiki, part spreadsheet, part web page authoring tool, and totally brilliant.
The attention to detail in the design of WikiCalc is amazing. It has all the powerful spreadsheet functions you would expect plus formatting features that can create professional looking web pages and graphs. While it is still technically in beta, it has the feature set of a Version 4.0 product. To get full appreciation take a look at the Screencast: wikiCalc demo done by Dan Bricklin himself.
I was particularly impressed with the web services interfaces and ability to link cells to live dynamic data like stock prices, or dynamic links to other spreadsheets. Cool! WikiCalc can be used as an on-line spreadsheet with a web browser, or it can be downloaded and hosted on your own server.
Dan is a leader in the Open Source community so it is no surprise that WikiCalc is available as open source. However, Bricklin and SocialText announced a deal where SocialText will sell and distribute a commercial version of the product. Good move.
VisiCalc was the first packaged software program I ever used, so Dan Bricklin was "The Man" in my book. Recently he has become a good personal friend. One of the nicest guys you will ever meet. While he is a strong Open Source proponent, he is also a friend of Microsoft. 
Dan attended a Microsoft party in Boston yesterday. Here is a picture of Dan with Alan Yates, General Manager of the Information Worker group at Microsoft responsible for Microsoft Office.
Good luck to you Dan! I hope WikiCalc brings you additional fame and fortune.
Recent Comments