MS Excel Services

MS Excel is pervasive, people understand it, is inexpensive, and it is the repository of choice for massive amounts of enterprise data.

There is a need to supply server-based services to all the individual users of MS Excl in order to increase their productive usage of its capabilities.

To wit, Microsoft has introduced Excel Services delivered via SharePoint.
Learn more about it @ http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/HA101054761033.aspx

With this approach, the enterprise could deliver enhanced, targeted services (say analytics, data mining, data cleansing) to MS Excel users - thus enhancing the efficiency of using Excel Workbooks and Worksheets.