Nintendo of America Powers Up with Spreadsheet Server

Published: July 25, 2006

by Alex Woodie

Financial reporting at Nintendo of America used to be a tedious operation. Productivity was limited due to the steps necessary to generate reports from its OS/400-based Infinium application into Microsoft Excel. But now that the Redmond, Washington-based computer game maker has implemented Global Software's Spreadsheet Server software, Nintendo of America's financial reporting has become more streamlined.

Global's Spreadsheet Server turns Excel into a virtual interface for a range of popular ERP systems, including Infinium, J.D. Edwards, BPCS, Movex, Silverlake, and R/3. Instead of working within those systems' native report formats, or manually moving data between those formats and Excel, Spreadsheet Server turns Excel into a real-time, bi-directional interface for financial data residing in those applications.

At Nintendo of America, Spreadsheet Server for Infinium has had a big impact. "The Spreadsheet Server for use with Infinium has dramatically increased our financial reporting and analysis productivity in Excel," says LeighAnn Walters, a senior accountant with the company. "This is a magnificent Excel-based user tool that Nintendo of America business users are receiving excellent advantages from."

Global Software's Spencer Kupferman isn't surprised. "Our Spreadsheet Server application harnesses the very best in leveraging a technology that is familiar to all accountants and business users all over the globe: Microsoft Excel," he says. "It was essential for Nintendo of America to implement Spreadsheet Server, as building reports in Excel represented a significant portion of their back-office reports. We brought all of those Excel reports to life in our dynamic Excel reporting environment."