It is the year 2008, we are half way through. Excel 2003 is 5 years old. Stop using it please.
Why? Excel 2003 has the old “limits” – 65,000 rows, 256 columns, memory limits etc. Excel 2007 on the other hand, 1 million row limit, etc etc. That coupled with the way pivot tables work in Excel 2003 compared to 2007, and the SQL Server Analysis Services features with 2007, it is a no brainer to go to 2007.
Companies will say – “But we can’t move all our users to 2007, we can’t afford it” – well, think about just moving your power users. The users that have huge spreadsheet extracts, etc. It is worth it. They can save files in 2003 format if they need to share a smaller file or something, and the 2003 users can install a 2007 viewer.
Other options for huge spreadsheets and extracts are… Access – which your users need training on, or need to be able to adapt to, or another options is SSAS and Cubes, which you need executive buy in, and the infrastructure, and the training to get your users up to speed, and by that time you will want Excel 2007 to connect to the cubes, so…
just start using Excel 2007 – 2009 will be here soon!
Steve Novoselac's Blog 