"A bird, like homo sapiens, has two feet" doesn't mean that birds are humans or humans are birds either. It means that in this respect, birds and humans are alike. Which is what GP meant: With respect to conforming data, databases behave just like Excel.
Language note: I think it's the fact that there are two commas around the inserted-clause [terminology?] ", like Excel," that does it. If there were only one comma, before or after "like Excel" it would read the way you read it. Can be tricky for non-native (and sometimes also native) speakers.
"A bird, like homo sapiens, has two feet" doesn't mean that birds are humans or humans are birds either. It means that in this respect, birds and humans are alike. Which is what GP meant: With respect to conforming data, databases behave just like Excel.
Language note: I think it's the fact that there are two commas around the inserted-clause [terminology?] ", like Excel," that does it. If there were only one comma, before or after "like Excel" it would read the way you read it. Can be tricky for non-native (and sometimes also native) speakers.