What is the name of this crazy-new spreadsheet?

January 29, 2006 10:30 AM

What is the heck of the name of this crazy-new spreadsheet?

About 6 months ago I downloaded a demo for OS X of this nifty next generation spreadsheet. I remember one could move entire columns over by clicking and dragging, reformat super-speedy-like. The columns and rows didn't look like normal cells but were gray boxes you could drag here and there and have the cells update automagically or something.

I deleted the demo because I didn't have a need for it nor the budget at the time. But things have changed and I want to take a second look at it.

Pretty sure they have a windows version too. The price was in the $300 range. Checked the apple.com third party download site and my Reciepts folder in OS X. Nothing rings a bell. Any help?

posted by Tacodog to technology (12 comments total)

What is the name of this... rather. goes to make coffee
posted by Tacodog at 10:39 AM on January 29, 2006

Quantrix
posted by neustile at 11:05 AM on January 29, 2006

That's the one. Muchos gracias, neustile!
posted by Tacodog at 11:40 AM on January 29, 2006

Now the question's been answered, I've just got to add; boy, does that ever look like Lotus Improv, from over 12 years ago. I worked at Lotus on the launch of that, and still have the t-shirt.
posted by punilux at 12:05 PM on January 29, 2006

It is even priced like Improv was.
posted by b1tr0t at 12:13 PM on January 29, 2006

According to this article detailing the history of Quantrix, they sublicensed IBM's patents used in Improv. It's supposed to be an Improv clone, I believe it was first released on NeXTSTEP.
posted by neustile at 12:54 PM on January 29, 2006

O rly? I spent years working in a Notes ISV and never once used Improv. Thanks for the tip!
posted by Tacodog at 12:59 PM on January 29, 2006

forgot to ask, there isn't an open source version of a spreadsheet that has similar actions, right? I'm guessin' no.
posted by Tacodog at 1:00 PM on January 29, 2006

Well I'll be. Thanks for that neustile. Improv was hopelessly mis-marketed, *ahem* , but it's heartening to see that good ideas can endure.
posted by punilux at 1:05 PM on January 29, 2006

As soon as I saw this question I knew Improv would be related. It's incredible that more hasn't been done with that idea, especially since it's well over ten years old. There *was* a shareware knock-off I found once, but it seemed more proof-of-concept, and wasn't really useful. I'll find the link when I get home, if you're interested.
posted by bonaldi at 3:04 PM on January 29, 2006

Looks interesting, but you can do most of the things shown in the demo using Pivot Tables in Excel.
posted by Sharcho at 5:38 PM on January 29, 2006

When you asked this, I found this (which was once here, via here).

But it was free, and not seemingly actively developed. So I assumed it wasn't it. But now, reading the answers, it is indeed meant to be something in the same vein, but I'm not even sure if it actually works. It appears to have been meant as a commercial product, but has since gone open source, but the SourceForge page is all but useless and seems abandoned. Hmm.

But anyway, might as well add the data point for posterity.
posted by teece at 9:19 PM on January 29, 2006