What are the major spreadsheet programs?


1. Do you have any figures on market share for spreadsheet products? My 
preliminary research indicates that the current market is 
dominated by the Big Three: Excel, 1-2-3 and Quattro. Is that correct?
Is there a fourth contender? 

  The market is dominated by Microsoft Excel. It has the dominant market 
  share. My guess is more than 60% ... but Market Share is hard to 
  calculate because IBM gives away copies of Lotus 1-2-3 with some 
  systems. The majority of serious spreadsheet users are Excel users.

  2. Are there any shareware spreadsheets. 

  Check my page on Spreadsheet Links at 
  http://dssresources.COM/spreadsheets/spreadsheet.html

  Spreadheet shareware is not a significant factor in the market in my 
  opinion.


  3. What are the "must-have" features that any spreadsheet needs to 
  feature these days? 

  The key features needed are the capability to export as HTML, create 
  pivot tables, provide a full set of built in functions, and 
  sophisticated charting.

  4. What is lacking in today's applications? What's the single biggest 
  improvement needed? 

  I only use Excel and Lotus 1-2-3. I don't think much is lacking ... Web 
  integration is much better in Excel 2000 than in Excel 97, but many 
  Microsoft specific HTML tags are added that make it hard to edit the 
  exported Web pages in an HTML editor. You will need to make all changes 
  in Excel and others can import your Web document back into Excel.

  5. Is anyone offering a spreadsheet as part of an ASP package? 

  I don't know. I don't think application service providers need to 
  provide spreadsheet applications. Microsoft may try if ASPs catch on.


  6. Which spreadsheet do you personally favor and why? 

  Microsoft Excel ... I have used it for 15 years ... first on the 
  Macintosh and now with Windows. Why? It works.