eXpresso, an online collaboration tool around Excel spreadsheets, has upgraded its application to offer support for all versions of Microsoft Excel and for additional features. Users of Excel 2003, Excel 2007 and other versions will be able to access all features and tools that are normally used within in their Excel applications, as well as custom macros, styles, and formatting via eXpresso.

Previously, eXpresso offered limited functionality of Excel spreadsheets on its platform. eXpresso’s has also added the ability to let users create and market custom spreadsheet macros to others from within the eXpresso environment. Via eXpresso’s platform, users can hold live online meetings to discuss and update spreadsheets and you can control viewing options of other users. eXpresso subscriptions are $15/user per month or $79/user per year

eXpresso raised $2 million in series A funding in 2007. eXpresso’s drawback is that it only focuses on Excel and faces stiff competition from Zoho and Google Docs, which offer a suite of collaborative tools around both Excel and other offerings, including Word and PowerPoint. The company says that it is launching full support for Microsoft Word and PowerPoint sometime this summer. If this does happen, eXpresso could become a more serious contender in the document collaboration space.

However, eXpresso isn’t the usual AJAX online spreadsheet competitor. Rather, it’s a series of collaboration tools and back-end database secret sauce wrapped around Microsoft’s own online spreadsheet editor, Microsoft Excel Web Component. This avoids a lot of the compatibility issues faced by other editors when they try to import Excel documents on to their platforms. The company seems oddly positioned by leaning heavily on Microsoft’s technology, but CEO George Langan assures me that they can continue to develop the component without Microsoft’s support and have a great deal of patented IP in the database system they run on. Microsoft has abandoned the technology themselves, announcing an end to development of the Office Web Components. Instead, they are focusing on developing new technologies around Microsoft Sharepoint.

The spreadsheet editor works smoothly, provides a familiar interface, and exposes a great deal of Excel’s desktop functionality online. You can edit cells, add formulas, sort, filter, and format. Google and Zoho have been aggressively adding a lot of these features themselves, but support auto-fill and charts as well. They also offer more applications. You can create a new file from within the program or sync one directly from Excel using their plug-in. eXpresso also offers file permissions (down to cell ranges), enables real time chat, and file management (version control, spreadsheet comparison). It’s currently free in beta, but will cost $10 or less per seat when it’s finally released into production.

When you walk into a gym, you see the same gear you saw 10 years ago, with little or no innovation. Sure, some equipment now features music or some kind of TV but there is little that would really make the sedentary crew of CrunchGear want to leave their comfy chairs. Until now: Expresso Fitness has released an innovative virtual reality-enhanced fitness bike, the S2. The fitness bike features a 17-inch LCD screen, heart rate sensors, steering mechanisms, a shifter and a Pentium PC with built-in TV tuner and video card. Ready for your cardio workout?

At first glance, the S2 looks like a normal exercise bike with a LCD monitor attached at the top, but once you get on it, all that changes. When you first start the bike up, you are prompted to login with a name and password. The bike actually stores personal information of each of its users, and uploads it to the Expresso Fitness website. After you’ve longed in, the software kicks in, and you are prompted to pick one of the many routes the software offers you. The screen will display the basic layout of the route, its difficulty and some other basic information.

After you’ve finished the route, the bike will store information like your heart rate, how many calories you burned, how fast you rode the track and so on. When there are numerous S2 fitness bikes, users can actually race against each other. If you’re riding solo, once you complete a route and go back to it, there will be a ghost rider describing your path from your last race, so you can compete against yourself.

The bike is very user friendly when it comes to actually working out on it. The handlebars feel sturdy enough to grip tightly, the pedals are solid and there’s a shifting stick in front of you that loosens (and tightens) the pedals up in case you want to change your pace. You can upload your information to any other S2 fitness bike anywhere you are since Expresso Fitness manages all of your information online.

The S2 provides users with a friendly, innovative and fun riding experience. Overall, there were no real problems I found with the S2. The routes look great, the bike itself feels solid and the multiplayer/gaming aspects of the bike make the workout feel less like a workout and more like fun. The S2 is a great addition to any gym, and if you happen to come across one, don’t be afraid to give it a go.