4 ms·
"Excel" became a synonym for spreadsheets. There are millions of SMEs, today, running on spreadsheets that aren't Excel. My wife runs her little SME with her
by TacticalCoder 4y ago
"Excel" became a synonym for spreadsheets. There are millions of SMEs, today, running on spreadsheets that aren't Excel. My wife runs her little SME with her paid-for Google Workspace / G Suite: she and her employees are happily filling 'em little cells from the browser in their Google world (for better or worse). There are millions of SMEs like these.
I should know better and run some spreadsheet locally (or maybe use Emacs, which of course can do simple spreadsheet stuff) but I don't bother: I use Google spreadsheets for my VAT, tax, fuel/car mileage computation etc.
Many people around me do just that: they never used any advanced spreadsheet feature and Google spreadsheet is sufficient.
It's as if anyone using GMail who eventually discovered the "Google Drive" then realized he had "Excel" there too (it's Google spreadsheet but they don't care, they still call it Excel). How many people are using GMail?
I also know, shocker, one Apple afficionado using Apple numbers although the Apple users I know typically have GMail / Google spreadsheet.
Now here's the funny kicker: besides during that one gig in a 50 K employees boat, I don't know anyone still using Excel. And, oh the irony, at that gig I was tasked with porting a spreadsheet to a dedicated app.
Of all the Mac laptop users who don't bother having a desktop anymore... Certainly there are some (like my wife) who need a spreadsheet right? Are these people actually all buying Excel to run it on their Mac? Or are Mac users not spreadsheet users!?
I'm confused.
To me a more correct article title would be:
"Spreadsheet never dies" (and "Excel" became a synonym for "spreadsheet").
- matwood 4y ago> Are these people actually all buying Excel to run it on their Mac? Or are Mac users not spreadsheet users!? I was able to avoid actual Excel for years until I became responsible for my divisions budget. Accounting people are all Excel that I can see. Until then I used Google Sheets and Numbers just fine on my mac. And when I was only viewing the budget, Numbers did fine converting or I could use Excel in read only mode.
- markmark 4y ago> I don't know anyone still using Excel. I suspect that is very much just the crowds you move in. Every vaguely large enterprise I know is still 100% Microsoft. A huge part of Microsoft's profit these days is their Cloud department, which is really just printing money selling Office 365 licenses to enterprise.
- crazygringo 4y agoTheir comment said it -- SME's (small- and medium-sized enterprises). There's a gigantic cultural division between SME's where the decision to go Google is a no-brainer (whether starting from in the first place, or switching to at some point in the past 10 years), and large enterprises where the inertia of MS Office is just too great to switch. What's funny is just how deeply unaware both sides often are of the other -- as both of your comments demonstrate. :)
- markmark 4y ago:) I'm completely aware that smaller companies are using Google. My last two companies used it! (Right up until we were acquired by a large enterprise and got moved to MS).
- benhurmarcel 4y agoThis is true although Google is slowly getting more of that market. There are various very large companies that are switching.
- themadturk 4y agoYes, I bought Excel to use it on my Mac.