I gotta agree with Shaun's comments that it is fair enough for the totes to protect their services and data products, but please provide some samples so we can get an idea of how to use them in say, Excel, without having to become a whizz overnight in VS2010 to master C#, & SOAP web services.

Tatts Racing did a great job of this by providing a simple little Excel file that used their xml feed. It was a brilliant marketing idea to get weekend warriors up and running with their own little 'systems'.

My point is that if a company sets out (intentionally or unintentionally) to make life difficult for their customers, those same customers will vote with their feet and go elsewhere to get what they need.