I’ve been talking to a bunch of people about Sumwise recently and when they ask me to give them an example of what it does, I generally say something like this:
In Excel you might write the formula =Sum(X31:X37) to add up the items under the Revenue heading. One problem is that this is cryptic and doesn’t mean anything unless you confirm that the range X31:X37 refers to the items you want. And what if the items actually extend to row 38? It is very hard to check and correct this unless you carefully check and review your formulae.
In Sumwise though, there is no A1-style grid. Rather, rows and columns are referred to by user-defined labels such as Revenue, Hardware, or Jan. In Sumwise, the formula =Sum([Revenue.]) would add up all the rows underneath the Revenue row. The formula means what it says and does not need to be translated to be understood or checked.
The usual response to this is “don’t Excel’s range names do the same thing?” The short (and long) answer is NO! In terms of making your spreadsheet model more understandable and reducing potential errors, Excel’s range names actually compound, rather than solve, the problem. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Darren Miller 
