I was in an inflammatory mood at the beginning of the week and tweeted the following at #sqlpass:

DBAs don’t like it, but Excel IS the database for many. This hasn’t and won’t change. Manage to this reality.

The lion’s share of people (DBAs, I guess) who responded…Well, let’s say they didn’t agree.  I don’t know, maybe I’m nuts or something but the users I work with generally take the path of least resistance.  Of course Excel isn’t a real database, but do users care? No. They just want to get their work done. If the data they want is available right now from an IT-provisioned data source, they’ll use it. If it’s not, the average user will end-run you so fast your head will spin. 

Are spread marts a good thing? No, they suck.  Are they a fact of life? Who knows…but I see just as many “mission critical” excel workbooks now as I did 5 or 10 years ago. That says something.

So why not embrace Excel as a potential solution for certain scenarios? Introduce them to Project Gemini (PowerPivot!)  and now you at least can get a view into what they’re up to – you can actually begin to manage some of their output.

What do you think? Honesly, I’m curious…I could be out of my mind, after all.