You're doing it wrong.
sharepoint/svn avoids these issues.
sharepoint/svn avoids these issues.
Utter fail.
It's like you're telling me to send a TELEGRAM rather than use IRC.
If you instead use Excel files stored on the network, and you and I want to "collaborate" on a document, at best we're ping-ponging the file back and forth to each other. Sometimes we collide, and have to Merge - which is very painful if we've made any kind of extensive changes.
Suggesting Sharepoint / SVN is a reasonable solution to how to collaborate is like suggesting one telegraph system over another. It's not remotely the same thing, at all.
Office 365 is much better, granted. But the SkyDrive interface is no better (and in many ways worse) than Google Docs.
I wouldn't use Excel files on a network. I'd use a database or chuck the xlsx into SVN. Changes to complex data need to be managed. Don't expect miracles. There are edge cases where Google Docs will get this wrong. Sync needs human decisions made occasionally.
See my other comments about usage of SVN/Sharepoint and the use cases.
Office 365 is sharepoint. Skydrive is actually a variety of sharepoint. The interface isn't great but neither is google docs, which is why larger companies tend to just use Sharepoint Workspace which is a desktop app for accessing sharepoint portals.
It's like you're reviewing a completely different product from the one I've used daily, for years.
If it's a command line app they'd be lost so that might be the basis of your argument.
Despite common knowledge you can diff and merge office documents with TortoiseSVN. All it does is fire up their built in review/diff tools.
The solutions that are generally accepted as the right solutions are:
1. Version control systems. So in this case, SVN or Sharepoint (yes it is a version control system for documents).
2. Collaborative editing.
3. Synchronisation.
In favour of point 1 which I always suggest using, history is possible to tie to a user always, centrally controlled, archivable on your own site, actually really easy to manage and allows people to work entirely offline. It scales to mega-sized documents as well. Imagine our typical formal specs (sorry we're too finicky about quality to do agile) which are 200-280 pages long in Google Docs?
Point 2 can lead to odd corruption. If you've ever actually done any collaborative editing with 2 or more people on Google docs or dealt with the crock of shit that is Numbers or Pages and iCloud on the Mac you'll know where I'm coming from.
Point 3 is just the transport layer for 2 and 1. OneNote does this, very well.
So the point is moot. Just because it complains at you that you're doing it wrong, doesn't mean the technical solution doesn't require some work on your part.