I've created many Excel-based apps for users, based on their user requirements over the last 15 or so years. People are generally pretty comfortable using Excel (since they are used to it), and I enjoy working with it as well. There's a lot you can do with it, and I've found that many users don't realize how powerful the VBA back-end can be (I've heard "I didn't know Excel could do that" quite a few times). I've used Excel VBA/Macros to: - Connect to databases (via ADODB, both Oracle and SQL), import datasets, and display the data. - Execute various database queries (select/insert/update/delete), also execute stored procs. - Automate manual tasks (within Excel iself, as well as having Excel control other apps). - Execute batch scripts. - Read text files. - Generate text files (useful for creating batch scripts "on the fly", for example). - Insert various form controls into spreadsheets to create user-friendly interfaces (buttons, dropdown lists, checkboxes, etc). - Manipulate strings (truncating, searching within strings, replacing text, concatenating, etc). - Generate various user-friendly reports (utilizing the data grid, cells color, charts and graphs, etc). - Convert existing Excel apps into VB.Net or C# apps, and vice-versa. - Troubleshoot and document Excel apps that were created by other users.