Can't blame them. The only other choice they usually have is some crappy, poorly thought "database system" written by IT people who are poster children of this article. I'm a programmer and I defend use of Excel in the offices - I've actually worked in such an office before and I know that all the alternatives suck more.

And I guess that's one of the biggest mistake programmers make - assuming that real-life data will conform to some imaginary, bureaucratic, fixed format. Even schemas ain't fixed in real life. That's why people use Excel.