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Comment by Waterluvian

1 day ago

I feel like Excel is their one true moat. Everything else is a business play, but Excel is the only truly superior tech compared to the alternatives.

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Waterluvian

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embedding-shape  1 day ago

Besides just being everywhere and being ubiquitous (which isn't really a "tech benefit" anyways) what exactly makes Excel "truly superior tech compared to the alternatives"?

  • Waterluvian  1 day ago

    There’s a lot of features. I think the one I would present is the enormously complex backwards compatibility support. Companies run on .xls / .xlsx files even if developers are offended by how they use and share them.

    I think a lot of “just use Libre Office” arguments are much like “just use Linux.” There’s a deep misunderstanding of what the value is with Excel. Being technically equivalent with features scores very few points.

    • cwnyth  1 day ago

      I've never experienced any compatibility issues with XLS(X) in LibreOffice Calc, and I've been Windows-free for over a decade. Sure, some spreadsheets might have unique functions in it, but I doubt that's the case for the majority over people using Excel.

      I'd also argue that Excel is holding back businesses. Instead of storing information in CSVs (for R or Python processing) or SQL, people rely on it when they shouldn't. It's not just that developers dislike Excel, it's that using it frequently causes huge errors:

      https://theconversation.com/the-reinhart-rogoff-error-or-how...

      3 replies →

    • prmoustache  1 day ago

      I don't know are we sure about that? I remember helping users unable to open a spreadsheet that grew too big in excel. Was working fine on openoffice (libreoffice wasn't yet a thing).