There’s a peculiar kind of dogma that persists in the modern business software world — a belief that Excel, though useful, is inherently limited. You’ll hear it in conferences, read it in blogs, and see it endlessly recycled on social media. It’s a script that goes like this: “There are just some things Excel can’t do. For real enterprise needs, you need to use [insert tool here — usually Power BI or an ERP system].”
Two such refrains were recently echoed by Richard Nero and Gasper Kamensek, both prominent figures in the Excel and analytics community. At the Global Excel Summit, Gasper delivered a well-received presentation listing five things Excel supposedly can’t do — a call to action for Excel users to embrace Power BI. Nero echoed this sentiment in a LinkedIn post that seems to draw directly from the same material.
Their intended audience? People who don’t know any better. People who have been trained to think of Excel as a glorified calculator rather than as what it can truly be: a fully-fledged client-server platform, capable of enterprise-grade collaborative workflows, built natively into its architecture for over 30 years.
And that’s the rub.
Excel Has Always Been Enterprise-Capable
The claim that “Excel can’t do X” relies on the assumption that Excel is inherently standalone — one user, one file, one task. This assumption is false. Excel has long supported a client-server architecture, often referred to in software design as hub and spoke. This means spreadsheets can act as clients pulling data from centralized servers — relational databases like SQL Server or Access — enabling scalable, secure, collaborative workflows.
This isn’t a recent development or an add-on. It’s foundational. Microsoft demonstrated this very architecture at their DevCast in December 1993, showing Excel acting as a client to enterprise databases. The video — three hours and 42 minutes long — remains one of the most powerful, overlooked demonstrations of what Excel is truly capable of. It’s buried history that contradicts the modern flat-earth thinking about Excel.
Why the Misinformation Persists
There are several reasons this truth has been obscured. First, there is an entire industry built on bashing Excel — vendors, consultants, and influencers who rely on users remaining unaware of Excel’s capabilities. If business leaders realized they already had a tool capable of doing what’s being promised by expensive new platforms, entire product categories would lose their market justification.
This is the “flat earth” model of Excel. It’s simpler, easier to sell, easier to teach — and very profitable to maintain. If 80% of the population believes the Earth is flat, a lot of businesses can sell compasses, maps, and guardrails. But once people realize it’s round — once they see the curvature for themselves on a long-haul flight, so to speak — they start asking different questions. Smarter questions. That’s dangerous for the status quo.
The Eureka Moment
I remember my own awakening to Excel’s architectural capabilities back in 1997. I stumbled upon what would later become the foundation of my career: building process-driven spreadsheet systems using client-server design. That year, I engineered a budgeting solution for a local authority and later an account modeling system for a large insurer — both based entirely on Excel working as a data-driven client. The impact was profound. I tripled my consulting pay for the first time in my life.
But more than the money, it was the intellectual and emotional reward that lit me up. I remember two moments vividly — real “Eureka” moments where I solved a deep problem and couldn’t contain my excitement. On both occasions, my sponsor, a senior executive named Johnson, happened to be nearby and came over to see what I had discovered. These weren’t abstract technical wins; they were real breakthroughs that inspired confidence, admiration, and further opportunity.
It wasn’t the technology alone that changed things. It was the effect of the technology. The impact. The recognition that I could lead, design, and implement scalable enterprise solutions using a tool everyone already had — Excel.
So Where’s the Opportunity?
Right here — in the gap between perception and reality. Between the flat-earth narrative of Excel as a limited tool, and the round-world truth that it is an unrecognized enterprise powerhouse.
The opportunity lies in transformation — in helping businesses see that they don’t need to throw Excel away. They need to reframe how they think about it. Excel isn’t a toy. It’s a platform. With VBA, SQL, ADO, and structured design principles, it becomes a system that rivals — and in many ways outpaces — modern FP&A and reporting tools in flexibility, cost, and speed.
But that story won’t come from the mainstream. It comes from the margins. From those of us who’ve built the future using so-called “legacy” tools. From those who’ve been there when the spreadsheet took flight.
In Summary
- Richard Nero and Gasper Kamensek have both repeated the trope that Excel can’t do certain things — implying the need for external tools like Power BI.
- What they overlook — or choose not to mention — is that Excel already supports client-server architecture, enabling scalable enterprise solutions.
- The 1993 Microsoft DevCast is living proof, showing Excel integrated into enterprise data environments.
- The “Excel-bashing” industry profits from users not knowing this. If the truth were widely known, the market for unnecessary tools would shrink.
- The analogy is simple: flat-earth thinking is easy to sell, but the round-world reality is transformative.
- My own journey — from being lost in the wilderness to tripling my pay — was built on this knowledge.
- The Eureka moments are real. And infectious. And they offer a powerful, honest alternative to the dominant narrative.
We don’t need to wait for a new tool. We need to rediscover the one we already have.
Hiran de Silva
Consultant, Educator, and Advocate for the Reawakening of Enterprise Excel
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