Answer by Cameron Crest:
Excel has a lot of potential because it is widely in use. Although they are actively working on it, Microsoft has been slow to adopt the cloud with it's office products and this is where Google spreadsheets outshines it -for now.
Google spreadsheets is completely ONLINE and has some amazing functionality you won't find in excel. Functions like IMPORTDATA() IMPORTRANGE() QUERY() UNIQUE() just to name a couple. You can import live stock market data, link to other spreadsheets online etc. You can have 20 or more people working on the same spreadsheet at the same time and see what everyone is doing in real-time All work done is saved automatically and you can go back in time through the version history back to the beginning of the spreadsheet. Best of all, you never need to copy a Google spreadsheet. Just send links to your viewers or collaborators. This means there is one copy, one spreadsheet, in one place, accessible by anyone. Your spreadsheet never has old copies floating around. Make a change and everyone sees it in real-time You can gather data into a spreadsheet using online Google forms too. Existing
Microsoft is working hard to bring spreadsheets to the cloud with Office 365 but if you are expecting an online Excel spreadsheet to do everything a local spreadsheet stuck on your computer does, you need to wait until they make it happen.
The main problem with locally stored spreadsheets is sharing and collaboration and data entry. You are forced to make multiple copies of a spreadsheet if you want someone else to see it. Copies go stale, they fill up inboxes and hard drives. Data in a local spreadsheet usually has to be entered by hand by cut and paste or a sophisticated BI platform like SSIS (Sql Server Integration Services) or a VB script.
