Excel, as in my company, is ubiqitous throughout most businesses so by default it will reach the most users as a delivery platform. So, when I start to get specific about report design strategies and tactics, I will be talking about them in the context of Excel - unless otherwise noted.

There are some great tools out there for visual presentation of quantitative data, SigmaPlot and Illustrator being two of my favorites but they have a relatively low adoption rate amongst my users so I only use them in special-needs cases.