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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: 0s | 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 #
ciupicri ◴[21 Dec 25 00:11 UTC] No.46340979[source]▶
From 2020: "Scientists rename human genes to stop MS Excel from misreading them as dates" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24070385)
replies(1): >>46341060 #
1. lysace ◴[21 Dec 25 00:23 UTC] No.46341060[source]▶
Exactly. They couldn't really change it even if they wanted to. The implementation with all of its warts and quirks is now the standard.
replies(1): >>46341106 #
2. jsmith99 ◴[21 Dec 25 00:31 UTC] No.46341106[source]▶
They've now made a change in that at least when you open a csv it now asks you beforehand if you want your data transformed, eg converting strings to numbers where that loses leading zeros.