use Win32::ODBC; 

##</code><code>##

...
use OLE; # will read Excel workbooks
 ...
eval {$excel = Win32::OLE->GetActiveObject('Excel.Application')};
  &w_die("Excel not installed") if $@;
 ...
$excel = Win32::OLE->new('Excel.Application', sub {$_[0]->Quit;}) or
  &w_die("Sorry, cannot start Excel\n");
...

##</code><code>##

Sorry, cannot start Excel