Spreadsheets go mobile

As I rode the subway to work this morning, I marveled at the number of folks who were using smartphones to access their email during their morning commute. At one point, I leaned in a bit closer to the grey-haired businessman next to me, in an attempt to get a better look at what he was doing on his BlackBerry. Turns out he was playing Pong.

That notwithstanding, a lot of folks really do use their smartphone as a mobile office these days. And that crowd will probably be excited to hear about this: Actuate and Webalo have teamed up to bring spreadsheets to mobile devices. Actuate's 9 e.Spreadsheet, in conjunction with Webalo's User Proxy brings spreadsheets to devices like the RIM BlackBerry, Microsoft Windows Mobile devices, the Palm Treo and other Java-enabled smart phones. Users can utilize a software "wizard" to set up the data exchange; Afterward, a continuously-updating version of the file is sent by e.Spreadsheet to Webalo's Mobile Dashboard, which in turn delivers it to a user's device. "We believe that the future of Business Intelligence is to have complete access to all information regardless of the device on which it is being viewed and processed," said Peter Price, Webalo's president and CEO. "This announcement is an important step in realizing that vision."

While this is certainly good news for road warriors, it raises a few important questions--namely, how much mobile data access is too much? You'll recall that we reported on a study last week that found that employees were happier after cutting the "wireless leash." Is the current trend toward 24/7 access to data a good thing for business or a bad thing for employees? I'm interested to hear your thoughts.

For more on mobile spreadsheets:
- check out this press release