Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

The problem with Excel is that it's a 20-pound sledge hammer, and a lot of people just want to pound some tiny carpet tacks. Lots of people just want to take two or three columns of data and make a chart, and you don't need to shell out for the full version of Office to do that. Most of Microsoft's office "productivity" tools suffer from serious feature bloat, and while they're getting a *little* better at hiding advanced functionality until you need it, it's still going to be really daunting to new users (insert "my mom" reference here). People get suckered into using Excel because everybody else does -- the same reason Windows is popular; it's best at being "good enough" for most people -- and the last thing they need is to have the new version work differently from the old version, without an explanation as to why. Hopefully, the 2007 version has a "Welcome for Office 2003 Users" prominently featured in the Help, but I wouldn't be too sure.