If there was no more Excel.........

[Lewiy]

What would happen if:

a) Microsoft went bust or
b) Microsoft decided not to produce any more versions of Excel

(both unlikely possibilities in the short to medium term I admit)

Would the world move to a new (possibly inferior) spreadsheet platform, or continue to use out dated versions of Excel for ever more, or?????

 

[Oaktree]

Pretty sure Google would carpe diem to fill the void on that one

 

[Greg Truby]

Well under scenario 2, I, for one, would go back to Quattro Pro. Under scenario 1, then I guess Windows is dead too, so I'd have to go to a Mac. Since Excel was actually originally a Mac app, would one be able to go way back to Excel 1.0?

 

[just_jon]

I'd be buyin' stock in The Big Green Ledger Sheet & Eraser Co.

You know, I actually used them, first few years on the job, a few times. Gawd, talk about a cruel way to learn 'bout the ripple effect of upper-left errors ...

 

[brian.wethington]

I'd be buyin' stock in The Big Green Ledger Sheet & Eraser Co.

You know, I actually used them, first few years on the job, a few times. Gawd, talk about a cruel way to learn 'bout the ripple effect of upper-left errors ...

No offense buddy, but I sure am glad that was you and not me!

 

[Cbrine]

AAAAGGGGGGHHHHH!!!
Is it Halloween???? Why are you trying to scare us?

 

[Lewiy]

Well, it's just I heard recently that Excel was to be no more and Microsoft was having cash flow probl............, no, wait, it was all just a bad dream.

But the future is never certain, so perhaps we should all prepare for hibernation, just in case...........

 

[erik.van.geit]

no Excel = finally free from addiction to this forum

 

[TinaP]

I'm with Erik.

Seriously, though...If Microsoft couldn't fulfill the public's demand for software solutions, some other forward-thinking company or individual would certainly fill the need. Obviously there is a need or we wouldn't all be at MrExcel.com.

 

[Lewiy]

In theory I agree, but presumably there are many, many features of Excel which are subject to copyright/patents. If you've ever used OpenOffice for example, whilst for a light/average user it's much the same as Excel, as soon as you want to do anything more complex, you have to learn it a whole different way (comma's become semi-colons in formulas and the conditional formatting is almost alien) and as for VBA??? How on earth would we cope?