Solver for Excel 2008 Under Development

[MacRumors]

Microsoft's MacBU has announced that it is working to bring Solver to Excel 2008 as part of a future update.

Today, the best option for people who need Solver is to run Excel 2004 and Excel 2008 side-by-side, and switch to the 2004 environment for workbooks that require Solver.

However, we have been hearing loud and clear from our customers – particularly in education – that the side-by-side solution is suboptimal. For many people, Solver is a critical and necessary tool for coursework, and they want to work with Solver natively in the Excel 2008 environment. [...]

The Excel team is actively working to bring Solver to Excel 2008 as part of a future update. We have two distinct technical approaches and are exploring both. Once we have established which is the best option – and have code that meets our quality bar – we will announce a timeframe for availability here on Mojo.

Solver is an Excel add-in that allows linear programming in Excel, and was initially released for the Mac when Excel 2004 shipped but was dropped from Excel 2008 due to its dependency on Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) support.

Microsoft has previously announced that VBA support will be coming back to Mac Office in the next version.

Article Link

[SailorTom]

I hope that one of the 'distinct technical approches' is just porting the whole lot of VBA over. I'd rather they just get on and do that so we can have it sooner.

[shadowfax]

huh.... How about MathML Equation support in Word 2008 (and all other Office docs) so that I can actually look at Office 2007 documents that have math in them.

[Decrepit]

I *might* go back to using Office 2008 if this were to show up. Right now, I keep a whole Windows machine just for Office 2007.

[amusiccale]

"suboptimal" indeed.

[ArtOfWarfare]

and have code that meets our quality bar

That won't take long.

[Makosuke]

I'm still a little mystified as to how 2008 got out the door without at least Solver to begin with. Maybe that's because where I work we use that a LOT, but it sure seems like a huge omission for anybody doing work outside finance stuff with Excel.

We're certainly not going to upgrade until at least then, if not full VB support.

Also, "suboptimal"? How about "ridiculous," "insulting," "just plain stupid," or maybe "Why the hell would I run the two side by side instead of just not giving you several hundred dollars for a half-finished release and just use the one that does its job?"

[Rocketman]

and have code that meets our quality bar

Isn't that supposed to be substantially easier to achieve on Mac OS? Less legacy hardware and software.

Rocketman

[Fukui]

Originally Posted by Rocketman

Isn't that supposed to be substantially easier to achieve on Mac OS? Less legacy hardware and software.

Its MS Office man! Legacy is the name of the game!

[johncarync]

I'd like to thank Microsoft for giving me a pleasant-sounding synonym for "it sucks," "it's crap," "horrible," and "do it again" for me to use in meetings. "Your work is suboptimal" will now be heard by my staff when they screw up.

-John

PS: In my opinion, all of the Office 2008 applications are suboptimal.

[jmmo20]

the funny thing is that the first thing I thought after I read the article name was "a fix that solves all the issues with the under-developed version 2008 of MS Excel"



Seriously .. Office 2008 is faster but is full of cr*p. Worse version ever.

[Works4Me]

Originally Posted by johncarync

I'd like to thank Microsoft for giving me a pleasant-sounding synonym for "it sucks," "it's crap," "horrible," and "do it again" for me to use in meetings. "Your work is suboptimal" will now be heard by my staff when they screw up.

-John

PS: In my opinion, all of the Office 2008 applications are suboptimal.

I think "suboptimal"is going to become part of my vocab for describing some of my clients.

[Doctor Q]

It's lucky that customers pointed out the suboptimal situation. There's no way that Microsoft could have figured it out with, say, focus groups... or common sense.

[jdreher]

you can get a full office suite (including solver in the spreadsheet program) for free from NeoOffice, the Open Office implementation for Mac. It's not a perfect office suite but the price is right and I haven't had major issues with MS Office compatibility...

[rpmasson]

Today, the best option for people who need Solver is to run Excel 2004 and Excel 2008 side-by-side, and switch to the 2004 environment for workbooks that require Solver.

Today, the best option for *anyone* is to run Office 2004 and use Office 2008 an as expensive XML converter.

I don't think anyone could release such trash accidentally. If I were of a conspiratorial mind I would believe MS released this crap intentionally to undermine Apple. No other explanation. Well, perhaps to save money, MS hired 2nd graders to do the coding.. no, wait.. it would have been a better product.

[joeconvert]

Originally Posted by jdreher

you can get a full office suite (including solver in the spreadsheet program) for free from NeoOffice, the Open Office implementation for Mac. It's not a perfect office suite but the price is right and I haven't had major issues with MS Office compatibility...

And OpenOffice 3 is right around the corner with native support for Aqua.

I will have to say Word 08 isn't bad once it gets started, but everything else sucks.

[johncarync]

Originally Posted by joeconvert

And OpenOffice 3 is right around the corner with native support for Aqua.

I will have to say Word 08 isn't bad once it gets started, but everything else sucks.

I believe you meant to say "...everything else is suboptimal."

[jmadlena]

Originally Posted by rpmasson

...Well, perhaps to save money, MS hired 2nd graders to do the coding.. no, wait.. it would have been a better product.

As with most of the crap that comes from Microsoft, I think it is a problem with management more than programmers. I highly doubt that they throw any kind of real resources behind the Mac BU; it is more of an after thought than anything.

I feel bad for programmers at Microsoft. In the 90's, Microsoft was the place to be for talented programmers. Now, not exactly... I really think the higher-ups just don't know how to run a business.

[ArtOfWarfare]

Originally Posted by joeconvert

And OpenOffice 3 is right around the corner with native support for Aqua.

I will have to say Word 08 isn't bad once it gets started, but everything else sucks.

iWork doesn't suck. Keynote blows PowerPoint away... and Pages is a worthy rival for Word. Unfortunately... Numbers is... suboptimal. Hopefully version 2 of Numbers will blow away Excel.

[heisetax]

Originally Posted by joeconvert

And OpenOffice 3 is right around the corner with native support for Aqua.

I will have to say Word 08 isn't bad once it gets started, but everything else sucks.

I've tried OpenOffice, NeoOffice, Numbers, Lotus 1-2-3 & probably over a half a dozen more spreadsheet programs for my Mac over the past 24 years. None give me a complete product. I have written my own income tax prep program. It pays all of the bills around here. To change to these other spreadsheets I'd have to take many of my features out of my program. So are these programs suboptimal?

I really only wanted 2 new things in Excel 2008. they are more than 4,000 cell formats & make a universal app so that things would run better on my Intel Mac Pro. The new version of Excel has 65,000 cell formats available & is an universal app. But with all of the lost useful features & the many times slower operation of my income tax program, I will go along with the reply that Excel sucks. But I still agree with the MicroSoft statement that Excel 2008 is suboptimal. I guess we could say that it is so suboptimal that it sucks.

But this tendency to do things wrong seems to be part of so much software. Vista is the program that most think of. But in my unhumble opinion Apple has succeeded in copying MS in an area that we do not want. In this I mean that in Mac OS 10.5 Apple has changed many useful useful features & replaced it with an incomplete product. So for many people that are still using Mac OS 10.4, Mac OS 10.5 is also suboptimal.

Bill the TaxMan

[heisetax]

Originally Posted by ArtOfWarfare

iWork doesn't suck. Keynote blows PowerPoint away... and Pages is a worthy rival for Word. Unfortunately... Numbers is... suboptimal. Hopefully version 2 of Numbers will blow away Excel.

With the little emphasis that everyone seem to put on spreadsheets & the fact that no spreadsheet program has been able to displace Excel in its nearly 24 year lifespan, it will take 2 or 3 changes to better take on Excel. And that may not happen for those that make their living using spreadsheets as Apple seems to have take a different route with Numbers. Just like KeyNot & Pages have needed more than 1 update to really make them as good as they are today it will take Numbers just as long to really be good, and probably longer if Apple decides to have Numbers directly compete with Excel.

Just for the record I've owned every version of Excel from version 1.0 & I've owned every version of iWork since it only contained KeyNote. Currently Numbers has too many missing useful to me features to be able to replace my use of Excel.

As a sidenote, my wife has found some uses that Word would proably handle, but given the way they both work, Pages does an easier job ofthings. Whether it's better or not is a personal opinion. So in her opinion Pages is not suboptimal.

Bill the TaMan