🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <716000430.F00004@blkcat.UUCP> David.Gursky@p394.f70.n109.z1.fidonet.org (David Gursky) writes:
>I'll throw my two cents in to this debate.  The one thing missing from
>everyone's spreadsheet application is compatibility with Excel*.  Yes, it's very
>nice that everyone can read and write SYLK and 1-2-3 formats, but SYLK and 1-2-3
>are not the dominant format for spreadsheets anymore, Excel is.  So why is this
>important?  Because organizations have gone ahead and built "Mission-Critical"
>applications using spreadsheets (notably Excel), they shy away from a new
>product that forces them to re-engineer their application, and justifiably so.
>
>Now this is not to say that the company that is first to bring an Excel
>compatible spreadsheet to market is going to make a small fortune and capture
>the lion's share of the NeXT spreadsheet market for years to come, and become a
>major component in the suite of applications that sells thousands of NeXTs
>(don't think this is possible?  Look at how memory sales increased after Apple
>released Hypercard, or how laser printer sales increased with the advent of
>mature desktop publishing applications), but if any of the four spreadsheet
>vendors out their (Appsoft, Athena, Informix, or Lotus) expects to achieve that
>goal, Excel compatibility is must be a key piece to that puzzle.
>
>* What is Excel compatibility?  It is the ability to interpret correctly a
>complete set of Excel features in an Excel spreadsheet, including references to
>Macros, external documents (i.e. charts), formulas, the whole shebang.



This is what I have been waiting for for a long time.

Although every new product Improv, SoftPC (123), Mesa, has its ups
they all have their downs.  Not to mention non-combatibility with
Excel, but more importantly, poor graphing, and non-death defying
new ways of doing things.

I will give Improv the credit for the new gee wizes, but it is
still very difficult for me to do my old tricks.

Mesa is a great start, but although everyone uses 123 macros here
I will not take the pain, nor the time to use them.  After all
we are on a crusade to modernize to Excel on all platforms, thus
making things work everywhere.

So my final decision was to spend the stifling $80 to get the
Mac emulator Executor.  Everyone here that is running Excel on their
macs cannot match price, nor performance of running Excel.

So if you are thinking of waiting for Excel compatability, don't.
Buy Executor for the $80 and watch your Mac, and PeeCee mates cry.


-- 
Alex Dahl
dahla@lobby.ti.com           or        dahla@mksol.deseg.ti.com

Remember:  My expressions are unknown to my employer nor do they care.