VBA in Excel is really widely used in corporate environments, particularly for folks who do financial and statistical analysis. This will be a nasty hurdle for anyone who wants to have a Mac at home if they need a computer to sometimes do work on. Checking out a company PC laptop can be kind of a PITA.
I have to say this is a really clever move by Microsoft as it helps keep the status quo. MS is happy with Apple's 5% market share, but I doubt they want to see it improve much as they would like to sell an OS _and_ an office product - not just an office product.
I think dropping VB won't hurt Apple much (currently) as not that many people use VB.
But it will hurt Apple's chances of getting a foothold in the business market. I know of many businesses that are keen to jump ship to use Mac OS X, now that Macs are on Intel and businesses can still use the odd MS application if they have to.
But if that 'odd MS application' becomes MS office itself businesses don't really gain much by switching to Mac OS X if they spend the majority of time using a Windows application anyway.
That's right! Time to push for OpenOffice.org, neooffice, or any other office suite that uses the Open Document Format! This is the only way to make sure that no single software vendor can screw you with a decision like this, and that you'll be able to use your data years from now.
That's right! Time to push for OpenOffice.org, neooffice, or any other office suite that uses the Open Document Format! This is the only way to make sure that no single software vendor can screw you with a decision like this, and that you'll be able to use your data years from now.
Nice thought but the reality is in the business world .xls and .doc files are basically standards. It is expected you will have access to Office and produce documents in it and as it stands compatibility just isn't up to par when you use other applications. Whether that will change with the OpenXML file formats I don't know but for many people if it doesn't support VBA it is unusable anyway.
If MS were so inclined, could they break Parallels or VMware virtualization, either by adding some functions that aren't covered by them or by having Vista insist that it won't run while another OS is running? Presumably MS can't break BootCamp, the least convenient solution.
Apple is, and always has been, in a very weak position here. It's all very well for some people to say that "I'll never use an MS product again," but I can't imagine anyone at my University being able to say such a thing.
In a couple of years, however, if all goes well, and there are 200,000,000 iPods & vPods that rely on iTunes...
Comments
NeoOffice here I come. http://www.neooffice.org/
I think dropping VB won't hurt Apple much (currently) as not that many people use VB.
But it will hurt Apple's chances of getting a foothold in the business market. I know of many businesses that are keen to jump ship to use Mac OS X, now that Macs are on Intel and businesses can still use the odd MS application if they have to.
But if that 'odd MS application' becomes MS office itself businesses don't really gain much by switching to Mac OS X if they spend the majority of time using a Windows application anyway.
Bummer.
Time to stop using MS products completely.
NeoOffice here I come. http://www.neooffice.org/
That's right! Time to push for OpenOffice.org, neooffice, or any other office suite that uses the Open Document Format! This is the only way to make sure that no single software vendor can screw you with a decision like this, and that you'll be able to use your data years from now.
That's right! Time to push for OpenOffice.org, neooffice, or any other office suite that uses the Open Document Format! This is the only way to make sure that no single software vendor can screw you with a decision like this, and that you'll be able to use your data years from now.
Nice thought but the reality is in the business world .xls and .doc files are basically standards. It is expected you will have access to Office and produce documents in it and as it stands compatibility just isn't up to par when you use other applications. Whether that will change with the OpenXML file formats I don't know but for many people if it doesn't support VBA it is unusable anyway.
Apple is, and always has been, in a very weak position here. It's all very well for some people to say that "I'll never use an MS product again," but I can't imagine anyone at my University being able to say such a thing.
In a couple of years, however, if all goes well, and there are 200,000,000 iPods & vPods that rely on iTunes...