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We’re slowly ‘coming down from the clouds’ following a super busy and really inspiring couple of days at Google I/O 2011. Here’s our report on the major themes from the conference, and our experience hosting a Developer Sandbox stand throughout the 2 days.
The Conference
For those who don’t know, Google I/O is Google’s major annual conference focused on the developer community. It’s at this conference that Google announces its key innovations and future directions (at least for the year ahead). It’s also famous for the SWAG (promotional items) that are given to all attendees. Read More…
Spreadsheet templates hold such promise. A good template can save you hours of time you would otherwise spend creating your own spreadsheet, and gives you the benefit of someone else’s expertise. The sad fact though is that spreadsheet templates are fundamentally ‘broken’, and the concept of a good template is completely illusory.
Act 1: A sad tale.
Yesterday I needed a simple cash flow forecast model. Instead of firing up Excel or Google Docs and starting from scratch, I decided to look online first. So, I aimed my browser at the Google Docs template site and searched for a “cash flow forecast” spreadsheet. I got just 1 result! Undeterred, I clicked the button to preview this model and thought it was pretty close to what I needed—I could just add a few more rows, rename some things, and save myself some time and effort.
But after playing around with this cash flow forecast for a few minutes to understand how it worked I discovered that a key formula cell had an error—and not just a minor error—but an error that unless fixed would render the entire model useless. Read More…
We’re pleased to announce that we’ve been selected to attend this year’s Google I/O conference. We’re excited to be part of this great event, and we’ll be manning a Developer Sandbox stand throughout the two day conference.
Google I/O is in San Francisco on 10-11 May and is Google’s biggest and most important annual conference, attracting over 5,000 developers, startups, investors and the like. This year it sold out completely in a record 59 minutes. Google says about I/O:
Google I/O brings together thousands of developers for two days of deep technical content, focused on building the next generation of web, mobile, and enterprise applications with Google and open web technologies such as Android, Google Chrome, Google APIs, Google Web Toolkit, App Engine, and more.
Our spreadsheet application is built entirely using Google Web Toolkit, and Sumwise is great example of a sophisticated desktop-like application that runs entirely in the browser. In addition, Sumwise is hosted in App Engine—Google’s cloud service.
The Developer Sandbox will feature over 100 developers from around the world who have built applications based on Google technologies. These developers will be on hand to demo their apps, talk about how they built them, answer questions, and exchange ideas.
If you’re going to be at Google I/O this year, please come by our stand and say g’day!
Here’s what last year’s Developer Sandbox area looked like.
This week we announced the launch of Sumwise RUM – Really Useful Models that are pre-built and ready to use. With RUM we are taking spreadsheet templates to a whole new level!
Introduction to Sumwise RUM
Imagine you have an idea for a new business, and you’re at the stage where you want to build a cash flow forecast to model its economics. What do you do? One option is to start your own spreadsheet from scratch and battle with the usual problems of writing formulas, copying and pasting, linked worksheets and the like. Not to mention trying to get your balance sheet to balance!
Alternatively, you could search the web for an Excel (or Google Docs) template that matches your business type. But, now you’re dealing with a whole wasteland of dubious quality spreadsheet templates. And even if you find something acceptable, you’ll want to make changes such as inserting some new rows. But, are you confident enough to know which formulas need copying and pasting? And how will you know if the spreadsheet is still working properly?
This is where Sumwise RUMs (or Really Useful Models) can help. Think of these as spreadsheet templates on steroids. Because Sumwise is more structured and more understandable than traditional spreadsheets, and because it deals well with model modifications and extensions, Sumwise is able to solve the problems associated with spreadsheet templates. Read More…
If you’re reading this post, you’re on our new website, which we just launched today.
Our old site didn’t get into much detail about Sumwise, and this suited us fine while we were in semi-stealth mode. But, now that we’re starting to open up our modeling application to users, we felt we needed a site that said a bit more about the application, and about us.
We’ll be adding lots of content to our site over the next few weeks and months, so please connect with us, so that we can keep you updated. Of course, if you’d like early access to the beta, please register here so that we can set up an account for you, and send you some info.
Cheers
Sumwiseguys
