The world without Microsoft Excel?
Summary:
Excel is one of the most to-be-proud of Microsoft since the fundamental versions being born. I don't think many people we know that having a Window installed computer without Excel. It has been 35 years since the day the giant computing firm introduce the very first version and it's still going strong until today.
However, in accordance with the unstoppable development of technology, many users are moving away from Window platform gradually. Additionally, many old Window enable machines are retired and not being replaced by more advanced version is a sign of Window shrinkage. A slightly slow down in Window market is a synonym to Window-based application including Excel.
Furthermore, cloud computing is winning and proving its power in business world especially accounting and finance. Accountants and finance advisers are less likely to rely on Excel as a magic wand to turn raw data into something meaningful.
I think it's quite interesting to look at the origin of Excel and then flick through some reliable opinions to predict the future of one of the most critical consumer product of Microsoft.
The creators of MS Excel
We have been using Excel for age, but ever wondering should we look back the history of Excel. This concern intrigue me to do some research to trace back the invention of Excel.
If we go back to the invention of Excel, which is known as 1985 (30 Sep 1985), so much has changed in the way this ubiquitous application operates. Surprisingly, the first version of Excel was published in 1985 for Mac. The version for Window had not been released until 1987 which was 2 years later. (It was a hard decision for Microsoft at that time)
The first version of Excel named Excel 1.0 which was the first spreadsheet program to use a graphical interface with pull down menu plus point and click. In 1992, Excel 4.0 was released making it one of the first and foremost popular version of Excel with better mouse interaction, shortcuts and customizable features.
Consider the huge success of Microsoft nowaday, it's hard to imagine the company stood no chance of winning the game of electronic spreadsheet. The creators of Excel comprised just four members with Doug Klunder was lead developer who enabled Excel the wining feature which was recalculating.
The father of electronic spreadsheet
Although Microsoft is not the first or even second corporate got the idea of building electronic spreadsheet, they obviously are the most successful.
In 1978, it all started with VisiCalc which was a program developed by a Havard Business School student named Dan Bricklin. The program was primitive, and equiped with few fundamental capabilities. Bob Frankston, which is known as co-founder of VisiCalc, made the program more powerful. Amazingly, these two men sold 1 million copies of program. We can see it was a huge success for the duo considering the context of that time.
The maturity of Excel in business world
It's a tricky task to calculate the exact number of users running Excel. Assuming that Window users got their Excel installed on their computers, we can come up with a quite reliable estimate that there are at least 1.5 billion users around the globe in 2020.
This is a huge leap for Microsoft considering the fact that Steve Ballmer claimed in mid-2007 that they were approaching 1 billion.
However, there some clear evidences to say that this number is shrinking down every year. In consumer household, smartphones and tablets are handling a very good computing job.
"In the five years since Microsoft hit its high of 1.5 billion customers, I think it's reasonable, even conservative, to assume that the PC population worldwide has shrunk by about 60 million every year, which means there are probably no more than 1.2 billion Windows PCs in use worldwide today". Ed Bott - writer for zdnet - shared his view on an article in 2020 about Window 7.
I personally don't think the number of users is the only criteria to conclude about the stage of an application. It's still one of the crucial one simply because a consumer application would fade out if there were not enough download and install. Therefore, to some extent, we can say that Excel along with Window has reached it maturity stage and start to decline.
A world without Microsoft Excel
Now, it's time for the real question. What's is the future of Excel?
Over four decades, Microsoft along side with Window have been dominating and touching our everyday life.
According to investintech.com, there are at least 750 million users worldwide. Considering, the violation of copyright is ubiquitous in many areas of the world, I believe the real number is much more higher. This number is also in accordance with Satya Nadella's statement - CEO of Microsoft - in which he proclaimed it as Microsoft's most important consumer product. Satya Nadella also believes that there is one product that stands above the rest which is Excel.
“Think about a world without Excel. That’s just impossible for me,” Nadella said, speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival.
I reckon, it's hard to imagine a day in life of an office worker without opening an Excel file on his or her computer. I still remember the time when I was working as an auditor for an audit firm which gave me a chance to work along side with many accountant. And one thing I couldn't miss out was Excel is a sole application they use the most and many of them were great at working with Excel.
In addition, "Export to Excel" had been the function that was always on the most wanted list for users when the software selection team was carrying the user requirements survey. Obviously, we can see that users, especially accountant, and analysis still want and get more comfortable working with data on Excel. I guess we do not need to talk about the incredible flexibility which Excel can offer.
Ken Puls, an Excel expert, claimed that the major data is exported to Excel to analyze before final decision making can not be ignored regardless the size of company.
Conclusion
The rise of other competitive operating system is a worrying factor - or may I say a threat - to the crown of Microsoft. Accordingly, computers users are gradually find their way to accept another equivalent resorts like Apple Numbers, or Google Sheets. These applications could be answered for the question about "alternative to Excel". More importantly, Google Sheets could be the solution for those looking for a free version of spreadsheet (or Excel). Additionally, you don't have to worry about the version you are on because the online options are updated automatically.
Moreover, the wining of Cloud computing are dragging more business users away from offline application like Excel away.
I think, in a foreseeable future, Excel is still a indispensable for many computer users, especially in areas where operation and business transaction are not desired or required.
To better answer the question about this matter, I think it's should be put in a narrower and more specific context like a business, or at least country. I hope we all have a chance to revisit this question again in the future.
Reference:
https://www.exceltrick.com/others/history-of-excel/
http://www.bricklin.com/history/vcexecutable.htm
https://irishtechnews.ie/seven-reasons-why-excel-is-still-used-by-half-a-billion-people-worldwide/
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-many-pcs-are-still-running-windows-7-today/
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