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Ireland’s Diarmuid Early wins world Microsoft Excel title

(www.bbc.com)
280 points 1659447091 | 2 comments | 20 Dec 25 19:56 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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jjmarr ◴[20 Dec 25 20:27 UTC] No.46339337[source]▶
Does Microsoft gain useful information about product UX from this? Wondering if any Excel PMs watch this and see where micro-optimizations are made.
replies(1): >>46339675 #
lysace ◴[20 Dec 25 21:11 UTC] No.46339675[source]▶
Excel was completed at least a decade ago (probably two).

This is obviously 99% marketing. Microsoft/Waggener Edstrom tend to be really good at getting mainstream media to report on the marketing activities.

Example: For many Windows launches since Windows 3/95, there's been this media splash where Microsoft spends x million dollars on marketing and mainstream media then reports this, thereby getting (like) 100x millions worth of exposure.

replies(5): >>46340506 #>>46340979 #>>46341100 #>>46341298 #>>46341972 #
1. eszed ◴[20 Dec 25 23:01 UTC] No.46340506[source]▶
Excel is not "complete" until they stop forcibly converting long strings of numbers into scientific notation - or at least give me a sheet-specific way to turn it off. I know how to stop it on my machine, but I have shared documents where if any one of the 16+ other users forgets, then it's messed up for everyone.

Let alone the date issues.

At one point I did a deep dive on one or the other of these "quirks", and the earliest request for exactly the fix I want is from nineteen-eighty-fricking-five. Unbelievable.

replies(1): >>46340624 #
2. lysace ◴[20 Dec 25 23:17 UTC] No.46340624[source]▶
Yes, there will be edge cases. They need to balance historic compat vs one more fricking setting checkbox. I am thinking that you will never see this solved.