I am uploading an Excel file into the new Google Spreadsheet.  Of course, I am sending it a big, bad-ass, complex Excel file.  And, as it is slowly uploading, I started to think that we are now trying to do pretty unnatural things inside the browser.

Yes, I am a fan of minimizing the page-loading experience in a browser, so I generally like using AJAX.  But is the browser a robust enough operating system to support productivity applications? 

At Boxxet, we are asking a lot from the browser, with a fair bit of AJAX-y interactivity.  And we think it’s the best way to build web apps.  But when I look at a web-based spreadsheet, I wonder if we asking way too much from a browser.

So here’s what happened.  Google Spreadsheet would not accept my killer Excel file.  It accepted my simpler ones but not perfectly. 

But the application is pretty snappy and may change my mind about how far we can go with the browser as a platform for productivity apps.

For now, I will try Google spreadsheet for light spreadsheet duties that need sharing: timesheets, to-do lists, project plans.  But for financial modeling and interactive spreadsheets, I’ll stay with Excel.

But small steps in making unnatural acts more natural is how big changes start to happen.