You can load data from most any format ever devised (Yes, VisiCalc too!). And there are plug-ins that allow you to define new custom input formats, too. (What else would you expect?)

You don't have to import from files either -- you can import from webservices, databases, ftp, smtp, streams ... you name it! Files can only be saved as XML (or compressed XML). But the package includes a wealth of XSL-templates, so you can transform your XML output for presentation, or into other formats, if you wish.

Keystroke Macros can be easily recorded, stored, edited or replayed. For more serious functionality extensions, you can write a plug-in in any .net language -- just implement the iXLLPlugIn interface.

There's already a vast wealth of plug-ins available for anything you might want to perform. Plug-ins exist for database access (it can act as a replacement for SQL query analyzer!), for manipulating XML in any way imaginable, for authoring XSLT, CSS, batch files, circuit design, statistical analysis, timetabling, reporting, scheduling, and more fractal-toolkits than you could ever know what to do with. There are some quite impressive plug-ins for integrating with numerous applications, such as Biztalk, Infopath, MS-CRM, Sharepoint and even that lame-elephant, SAP.

Only one real problem. Excel-Lite is not a Microsoft product. In fact, no-one has written it yet. It's just a figment of my imagination, dreamt up a few days ago thanks to a post by Dave Burke. But hopefully, i'll have my hands on it one day not too soooon.

Ahhh... dreaming of software...