Solver in Excel 2008?

[Bob Greenblatt]

I am in shock. This should have been printed on the outside of the box. I have
built hundreds of models for clients that implement a piece of code using VBA.
Now it is hosed up. AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH. :angry:

While not printed on the box, MS has made no secret, and indeed has widely
published that VBA would not be available with Office 2008. You need to
express your concerns via send feedback in the help menu.

 

[Phil_Hammond]

> hear that Mr. Bill?

Not likely - we're mostly just users here...
[/QUOTE]
JE,
I did suspect that and figure I'm venting to the choir. BUT, I suspect folks up top lurk on the list too. If the MacBU team shipped Office 2008 minus the VBA support, minus the goodies in Excel like Solver, but with some "make pretty" additions to the interface then this starts ranking up there with Windows Millennium Edition (we need a new version for Christmas to increase the cash flow Windows). I could/can wait another year if a real upgrade came out to Office for the Mac. I live in both worlds, teach in both worlds and don't fear the ribbon anymore (though question it's existence at times). But I do like the Mac best - there I've said it.

Still for the younger ones posting here, I want to point out that Solver wasn't just a pretty toy thrown in the box to make special kids happy at Christmas. We remember the Lotus/Excel wars. We remember Back-Solver. That was Lotus's opening shot in data modeling and Microsoft had to answer back or lose a lot of business in the real money pit (aka Windows). A lot of business people and research people started taking Excel seriously after Solver showed up around here. The tide shifted about that point and for all of Office's other problems, Microsoft started to win that battle. And they already had the Mac pretty much to themselves. Thanks to us.

Yes, I'm that old friends, I remember Lotus, Harvard Graphics, CPM, Multiplan (my first Spreadsheet), VisiCalc, SuperCalc, Quatro-Pro.... Heck I've run Lotus 3 on VMS and Multiplan on a C64 (as well as CPM, DOS and Windows). And Excel 1.0 up on to now (sorry, no early release there).

But I also remember that Excel won it's top dog status because in part because it became a real tool when Solver showed up. And that it's now missing in Excel 2008 shows how far down the pole Microsoft rates the user needs of the Mac community have gone. Dust off the abacus friends. We just need simple math on our Macs I guess.

Or buy Parallels so you can run the REAL version of Excel on your Mac....
PH - MCSA, ACHS, CNA (love those letters)
PS
Mr. Greenblatt - Microsoft may have not hidden the fact VBA would be missing. But it's big difference in impact not having macros (which hurts too) and not having Analytical tools that have come with a program you rely on since version 3? maybe version 2? That's breaking a trust - and Microsoft was REAL quiet about that. Not even MacWorld noticed it in their review.

 

[Carl Witthoft]

But I also remember that Excel won it's top dog status because in part
because it became a real tool when Solver showed up.

Sorry, but I can't agree with that. Solver was one of many interesting
but clunky things Excel threw into the "bucket."


If you've ever tried TKSolver, you'll understand why I say Excel's tool
is a cute toy and nothing more. Heck, you can't even relax more than
one target variable cell at a time.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Not likely - we're mostly just users here...

JE,
I did suspect that and figure I'm venting to the choir. BUT, I suspect
folks up top lurk on the list too.[/QUOTE]

Do you have any idea how many lists there are? Just on MS's server? I
know that this list is monitored over time, but it's by those down in
the trenches.

But I also remember that Excel won it's top dog status because in part
because it became a real tool when Solver showed up.

Hmm... Solver for XL was released at the same time as Excel 3.0 and
Windows 3.0. I'd have said that the non-solver aspects of XL, running
on the first version of Windows worth the verb, were far more important.

Solver is, and has been, a tool very important to a small minority of
users, and completely irrelevant to the vast majority - even more true
of MacXL users than WinXL.

As recently as a few years ago, I remember reading that a survey of
corporations found that more than 75% of XL sheets in use did not have
even a single formula.

Mr. Greenblatt - Microsoft may have not hidden the fact VBA would be
missing. But it's big difference in impact not having macros (which hurts
too) and not having Analytical tools that have come with a program you
rely on since version 3? maybe version 2? That's breaking a trust - and
Microsoft was REAL quiet about that. Not even MacWorld noticed it in
their review.

Hmm... MacBU announced the death of VBA (and therefore analytical tools
wizards and solver) in MacOffice at MacWorld 2007. It certainly got a
LOT of attention then.

 

[Phillip Jones]

JE McGimpsey wrote: -------------------------snip-------------------------

Hmmm... MacBU announced the death of VBA (and therefore analytical tools
wizards and solver) in MacOffice at MacWorld 2007. It certainly got a
LOT of attention then.

Read both MacWorld and what was MacAddict (now renamed) they both
covered MacWorld2007 although coverage about Office2008 but if there was
mention of VBA missing or even items such as solver missing. I couldn't
find it.

Recent coverage in both only after it was released to the public, was
there any mention of these failings. Even then they were sort of glossed
over. Seemed like the reviews rather light weight, as if a Club was
being held over their head not to handle office with kid gloves. (My
impression) even the latest mention of the 12.0.1 upgraded was only 1/4
length of a column

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[jpdphd]

Solver is, and has been, a tool very important to a small minority of

users, and completely irrelevant to the vast majority - even more true
of MacXL users than WinXL.

As recently as a few years ago, I remember reading that a survey of
corporations found that more than 75% of XL sheets in use did not have
even a single formula.

Gee, you better not tell Microsoft business decision makers about
this, because the next 'upgrade' will be an application with tons of
boxes for text and numbers but no formulas!

Yes, Microsoft openly says that VBA is not included in XL08. But, most
people do not associate Solver (or wizards) with VBA. Thus, many
people buy XL08 and find out too late that Solver is gone.

* Why doesn't Microsoft put this information on page 1 of any website
that discusses XL08?

* Why, after all these months, hasn't Microsoft come up with a
replacement for Solver compatible with XL08? If it is that tough for
them to do, what hope is there for us to figure out ways of getting
AppleScript to do this?

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Gee, you better not tell Microsoft business decision makers about
this, because the next 'upgrade' will be an application with tons of
boxes for text and numbers but no formulas!

You don't think they know already? If more than a tiny fraction of their
customer base used VBA and Solver, I doubt they would have released
Office08.

Frankly, among *my* clients who use Solver, most would be better off not
doing so. The average corporate model I audit has so many logic and
numeric errors that Solver simply gives them a false sense of
accomplishment. Sadly, many of them are adaptations of B-school models
that were probably flawed to begin with.

That doesn't mean that SOME Solver apps aren't extraordinarily valuable,
and even flawed apps are sometimes better than nothing.

Yes, Microsoft openly says that VBA is not included in XL08. But, most
people do not associate Solver (or wizards) with VBA. Thus, many
people buy XL08 and find out too late that Solver is gone.

* Why doesn't Microsoft put this information on page 1 of any website
that discusses XL08?

Hmm... do you know any other company that advertises the shortcomings of
its products (except pharmaceuticals)?

Especially when 90+% of their customers don't even know what Solver *is*.

* Why, after all these months, hasn't Microsoft come up with a
replacement for Solver compatible with XL08? If it is that tough for
them to do, what hope is there for us to figure out ways of getting
AppleScript to do this?

Don't know that anyone has suggested that AppleScript would be able to
replace Solver. Application-specific solutions are certainly possible,
but I can't imagine a general tool implemented in AS.

And yes, I suspect it *is* that hard to do. Given the enormous amount of
testing that has to be done for even trivial changes, months is hardly
an excessive amount of time, if, in fact, MacBU will be able to come up
with a replacement.

 

[Phil_Hammond]

Okay J.E. maybe a fraction of YOUR clients don't use Solver. But a lot of my clients, PHd's and grad students doing research, use it. I'd say based on some recent wailing my best guess is that 50% know a lot about it - maybe more. They use it for animal behavior data, they use it for LP studies (Linear Programing), and they use it for basic growth curves. They know it and use it and teach it a lot.

Sure, yes, we have big name stats packages like SPSS, SAS, Stata, MiniTab, you name it. But everyone learns Excel at the start and that's where they start crunching numbers. Want to be concerned? I teach Solver to our 2 year business kids. That's YOUR next generation of clients.

So Solver is kind of important to use at the University. And in a College that is still 30% based on Macs, it's kinda important to my Mac users.

And since Solver didn't come from Microsoft anyway and the company that makes it freely admits on their website they can (and do) build to order in Java and .NET and C# - you think our friends in the MacBU could have spent a little money and bought a new version. A VBA free version.

Nice try J.E., I know you are trying to help but you didn't sell me. We got the shaft. Period. I'm backdating those who moved forward back to Office 2004 and waiting until MS (hopefully) sees the light.

Hey, if I got a car with a full stereo package plus DVD player and you got one identical but without a radio and we both paid the same price, who got the better deal?

Or did one of us just not need to listen to music while we drive?

Phil

 

[jpdphd]

You don't think they know already? If more than a tiny fraction of their
customer base used VBA and Solver, I doubt they would have released
Office08.

Frankly, among *my* clients who use Solver, most would be better off not
doing so. The average corporate model I audit has so many logic and
numeric errors that Solver simply gives them a false sense of
accomplishment. Sadly, many of them are adaptations of B-school models
that were probably flawed to begin with.

That doesn't mean that SOME Solver apps aren't extraordinarily valuable,
and even flawed apps are sometimes better than nothing.



Hmm... do you know any other company that advertises the shortcomings of
its products (except pharmaceuticals)?

Especially when 90+% of their customers don't even know what Solver *is*.


Don't know that anyone has suggested that AppleScript would be able to
replace Solver. Application-specific solutions are certainly possible,
but I can't imagine a general tool implemented in AS.

And yes, I suspect it *is* that hard to do. Given the enormous amount of
testing that has to be done for even trivial changes, months is hardly
an excessive amount of time, if, in fact, MacBU will be able to come up
with a replacement.

Mr. McGimpsey,

I keep forgetting that one cannot infer my emotions when I write. Lord
knows that I am too old to learn the proper emoticons to use. So, I'll
try to be clearer.

a) When I said that you shouldn't tell Microsoft about many XL users
not using/needing functions, I was 100% sarcastic.

b) When I said that MS should note the absence of Solver in XL08 on
page 1 of their website, I was 50% sarcastic. Maybe not page 1 - but
somewhere! Currently, it is not mentioned at all. When you search the
Mactopia website for "solver", you get many dead ends and finally, a
link to ..... this forum!! When I shop for software, I DO look for
and expect to find things like system compatibility issues. The solver
issue is not (officially) addressed by MS. As I understand it,
disappointed buyers can request a refund, but wouldn't it be better PR
if clarity prevailed?

c) When I said that AppleScript could be used to perform the functions
of solver, I was 75% sarcastic. One of MS's solutions to coping with
the loss of VBA is "create a new macro using AppleScript". Solver uses
AppleScript. Ergo, use AppleScript to make a substitute for Solver.
Okay, I know there's more to Solver than that ... hence, the high
sarcasm index.

Now that I've confessed my sins of omission, I want to comment on how
you've changed the subject from coping with the loss of Solver to:
Solver isn't nearly all it's cracked up to be. Sorry, I don't buy that
at all (0% sarcastic). This falls into the generic GIGO caveat for
computing in general. Bad models and bad data lead to bad results
whether you are taking an average or solving for parameters using
least squares regression. If people are mis-using Solver, either they
were taught incorrectly, forgot what they were taught or weren't
taught at all.

Speaking of GIGO, I'd be interested in learning how MS determined the
degree to which XL users employ Solver. (10% sarcastic).

100% Sincerely,
Jim Dilger

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Gee, you better not tell Microsoft business decision makers about
this, because the next 'upgrade' will be an application with tons of
boxes for text and numbers but no formulas!

Yes, Microsoft openly says that VBA is not included in XL08. But, most
people do not associate Solver (or wizards) with VBA. Thus, many
people buy XL08 and find out too late that Solver is gone.

* Why doesn't Microsoft put this information on page 1 of any website
that discusses XL08?

* Why, after all these months, hasn't Microsoft come up with a
replacement for Solver compatible with XL08? If it is that tough for
them to do, what hope is there for us to figure out ways of getting
AppleScript to do this?

Hi,

One of the key features of Visual Basic for Applications is not only the
programming language, but the collection of objects and methods that go
with it.

An extensibility feature of VBA is the ability to create "add-ins" which
are collections of VBA code that run natively as part of the entire
Office suite. There's also the concept of UserForms which is also now
unavailable.

All this is gone now. Applescript can only manipulate objects and
execute commands externally from the applications. It's an older concept
called "executable" in old Basic terminology.

In other words, Applescript is not a substitute for VBA. It can't be
made into an add-in, so anything at all like solver is just not possible.

Mac office users seeking programmability features are faced with
choosing from among a variety of less than ideal options:
* Run office for Windows in a virtual environment
* Stick with Office 2004
* Migrate to OpenOffice 2.4 and live with a very limited VBA environment
* Live with Applescript's limited scripting capabilities and complete
lack of cross-platform abilities

I don't like this situation and am perplexed that Microsoft is taking
the risk of losing key parts of their customer base as a consequence of
their VBA decision.

-Jim

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Speaking of GIGO, I'd be interested in learning how MS determined the
degree to which XL users employ Solver. (10% sarcastic).

100% Sincerely,
Jim Dilger

Hi Jim,

Microsoft has a variety of ways to determine how they think their
customers are using their products.

In Windows office theire's an option to join the usability program. What
that does is note which menu items and toolbar icons are clicked on, and
it reports the quantity back to Microsoft.

They do usability studies with volunteers and key customers and simply
watch people as they do their work and note what people do as they use
the products.

Microsoft asks the MVPs for their opinions. Sometimes the MVPs are very
influential (Office 2004). Sometimes MVPs are not very influential at
all (Office 2008). Next week the MVPs will be meeting with Microsoft's
Mac Business unit. It will be a difficult summit.
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/MVPsummit

The Mac Business Unit has some people who read newsgroup postings,
particularly when there is a new product release. The public responses
are noted.

Above is 100% sincere.

Now a flippant remark that's only 21.5% sincere. I've come to the
conclusion that when Microsoft does their studies they use quantity as
the key criterion to determine the value of a feature. If 95% of users
use File > Save and only 2% use the Visual Basic Editor, they conclude
that VBA is 2/95 as valuable to users as File Save. Yet it costs far
more to support VBA, so they come to the erroneous conclusion that it's
not needed. It's like saying people park their cars most of the time, so
they really don't need the engine. If Microsoft were building cars
they'd ship cars without engines because they are only used less than 1%
of the time and cost more than any other part of the car.

-Jim

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I want to comment on how
you've changed the subject from coping with the loss of Solver to:
Solver isn't nearly all it's cracked up to be. Sorry, I don't buy that
at all (0% sarcastic).

Certainly wasn't trying to suggest that Solver wasn't all it's cracked
up to be. It's a very good product and Frontline's enhanced Solvers are
much better.

As always, it's how one uses the tools. It's my experience that a very
small fraction of users in the wild can do more than follow a recipe.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Nice try J.E., I know you are trying to help but you didn't sell me. We got
the shaft. Period. I'm backdating those who moved forward back to Office 2004
and waiting until MS (hopefully) sees the light.

Unless one was forced to buy Office08 without doing any research, I
don't see how anyone got the shaft. There was more than a year's notice
that XL08 would be a crippled product - that VBA and add-ins (such as
Solver) would not work.

Hey, if I got a car with a full stereo package plus DVD player and you got
one identical but without a radio and we both paid the same price, who got
the better deal?

Bad analogy. I wouldn't have bought the car with the radio at any price
if I needed a DVD player.

I have recommended to 90% of my clients that they stay with XL04, though
most of them can use the features in PPT08, and especially Entourage08.
Word08's a wash so far.

While I use Entourage08 all the time, I use XL08 for maybe 5% of my work
other than as a convenient way to convert .xlsx to .xls and back.

 

[Phillip Jones]

Hi,

One of the key features of Visual Basic for Applications is not only the
programming language, but the collection of objects and methods that go
with it.

An extensibility feature of VBA is the ability to create "add-ins" which
are collections of VBA code that run natively as part of the entire
Office suite. There's also the concept of UserForms which is also now
unavailable.

All this is gone now. Applescript can only manipulate objects and
execute commands externally from the applications. It's an older concept
called "executable" in old Basic terminology.

In other words, Applescript is not a substitute for VBA. It can't be
made into an add-in, so anything at all like solver is just not possible.

Mac office users seeking programmability features are faced with
choosing from among a variety of less than ideal options:
* Run office for Windows in a virtual environment
* Stick with Office 2004
* Migrate to OpenOffice 2.4 and live with a very limited VBA environment
* Live with Applescript's limited scripting capabilities and complete
lack of cross-platform abilities

I don't like this situation and am perplexed that Microsoft is taking
the risk of losing key parts of their customer base as a consequence of
their VBA decision.

-Jim

Jim,

On your very last Paragraph, I believe that Microsoft, in its infinite
lack of wisdom; didn't realize how many colleges and universities
actually use Mac's to do teaching and research and other task. Or they
are simply uninterested in the market altogether and and think they are
stupid for wanting to use a Play Toy like Macs to actually get something
done. They have this corporate culture that permeates down even to the
Board of Directors That Mac's can't do the things windows machines can.

When in fact they can do as equal or better job as long as the software
is written for the OS.

I don't use items such as Macros, VBA, and solver. Because I haven't had
the need but I am but small minority of users of Mac's. I don't even use
Applescript (at least knowingly) but that me.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
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[Jim Gordon MVP]

Jim,

On your very last Paragraph, I believe that Microsoft, in its infinite
lack of wisdom; didn't realize how many colleges and universities
actually use Mac's to do teaching and research and other task. Or they
are simply uninterested in the market altogether and and think they are
stupid for wanting to use a Play Toy like Macs to actually get something
done. They have this corporate culture that permeates down even to the
Board of Directors That Mac's can't do the things windows machines can.

When in fact they can do as equal or better job as long as the software
is written for the OS.

I don't use items such as Macros, VBA, and solver. Because I haven't had
the need but I am but small minority of users of Mac's. I don't even use
Applescript (at least knowingly) but that me.

I think Microsoft is aware of the size of the higher education market.
It's pretty easy to get that information from licensing and sales figures.

I've seen magazine articles that compare market shares of higher ed vs
business and home use, and higher ed is not a large share of the overall
market (maybe 5 to 10% tops).

Apparently, being such a small part of the overall pool of users makes
the needs of higher ed fall close to the bottom of the totem pole. We're
just not a large enough group to be very influential it would seem.

-Jim

 

[JAMES BLANDING]

Hi, I just cranked up the student edition of Office 2008 and can't find the solver in excel or in any documentation.

Please tell me solver this. I am using excel as my check book ledger and need to know how to convert numbers to words. Example convert 246 to two hundred forty six.
Thanks James

 

[Phillip Jones]

No Solver in 2008. One of the casualties of ripping out VBA Support. No
VBA Support in 2008 for any office application.

Please tell me solver this. I am using excel as my check book ledger and need to know how to convert numbers to words. Example convert 246 to two hundred forty six.
Thanks James

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

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[FWM]

WTF? This is no good at all as a student... :angry:

 

[Carl Witthoft]

WTF? This is no good at all as a student... :angry:

Get OpenOffice, then. It's now got a solver.