Solver in Excel 2008?

[JE McGimpsey]

I just ordered mac office 08 expecting solver...if it's not available.. I
will cancel it right now.. <br>

Cancel your order. Solver is not available.

Big dissapointment. Theyre going to lost customers for this.

Yup, though it'll be interesting to see what the net result is. From the
response at MacWorld this week, I'd guess that on balance Office 2008
will do rather well.

XL definitely had the hardest time this version, but Word, Entourage and
PPt got lots of positive comments, and it's certainly possible to run
Office 2008 and XL04 together.

 

[Go_Tigers]

I'm very disapointed that Solver &amp; DAT are missing from Excel 2008. I use Solver daily so it looks like I'll have to keep using my PC...

Solver is also a staple in many business and finance courses.

I wonder what the folks in the MacBU were thinking?

 

[Phillip Jones, CET]

What is Solver? and what does it do?

Late adopter! <g>

I got a copy of XL0.9 in (IIRC) late 1984. XL's parent Multiplan before
that.


Agree on 98 and 04. I found XLv.X mostly a port to OS X native. Not
running in Classic added value, of course.


Since the decision was between (a) not selling you a copy of Office2008
because you're one (like me) of the low percentage of MacOffice users
that use Solver and VBA, and (b) not selling *anyone* a copy until
Office201x, it was probably a pretty simple, if unpleasant, decision on
MacBU's part...

That said, the MacBU XL team is acutely aware of the pain for Solver
users (they certainly knew in advance, and they've been hearing it in
person from MacWorld attendees all week). Solving the Solver problem is
on their list.

Whether it can be solved at all, and if so when, is both a technical and
a resource allocation problem, so we'll have to see...

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[Phillip Jones, CET]

In another post. It was revealed that at the Mac conference MS MacBU
team got an extreme earful about Solver Its definitely on the *to do*
list. It was noted it might not be solvable. Although If the code base
is the same between Office2007 PC and Office2008 are identical just
changes for the look and feel and key Mappings. I can't see what broke.
Except on the differences in OSX's and Windows' Math system?

It was a severe disappointment not to see Solver in Excel 2008...in
fact, Solver is critical for what I use Excel for.

If they want to keep the part of the business community that uses Excel
for decision making, MacBU needs to seriously get moving and release VBA
and Solver soon.

If they don't - the business community will find a program that will and
the MacBU can kiss that revenue goodbye, permanently.

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[JE McGimpsey]

I wonder what the folks in the MacBU were thinking?

They were thinking that they wished they had the resources to bring over
VBA and Solver in time for launch...

 

[Phillip Jones, CET]

In addition to my last reply you still need to go to MS Office2008
Feedback Page and rage on their. You won't get a personal response. But
that will add you name to the list of those that are in need of it.

It was a severe disappointment not to see Solver in Excel 2008...in
fact, Solver is critical for what I use Excel for.

If they want to keep the part of the business community that uses Excel
for decision making, MacBU needs to seriously get moving and release VBA
and Solver soon.

If they don't - the business community will find a program that will and
the MacBU can kiss that revenue goodbye, permanently.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |MEMBER:VPEA (LIFE) ETA-I, NESDA,ISCET, Sterling
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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<http://www.vpea.org>

 

[JE McGimpsey]

What is Solver? and what does it do?

See

http://solver.com/

XL's solver is a cut-down version of the products at that site.

 

[Axel Hammerschmidt]

What is Solver? and what does it do?

Solver saves a lot of time and trouble.

 

[Axel Hammerschmidt]

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 was included, I need it for classes!

And I was waiting for Office 2008 before buying a Macbook :-(

 

[daalsdad]

Thanks Microsoft! I just had to delete Excel 2008 and reinstall Excel 2004. I am a university professor who teaches statistics and operations research. I expected this "upgrade" to make what I see on my Mac similar to what students who have PCs see on them. Not even close.

What exactly did I get for my $130? Certainly not an upgrade; more like a downgrade. I have contacted MS to let them know how disgusted I am. Do they think their Mac customers don't use add-ins like Solver and Data Analysis? Do they think we use Excel for nothing more than arranging numbers on a spreadsheet? If we were that dumb, we wouldn't be Mac users, would we?

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Thanks Microsoft! I just had to delete Excel 2008 and reinstall Excel 2004. I
am a university professor who teaches statistics and operations research. I
expected this "upgrade" to make what I see on my Mac similar to what students
who have PCs see on them. Not even close. <br><br>What exactly did I get for
my $130? Certainly not an upgrade; more like a downgrade. I have contacted MS
to let them know how disgusted I am. Do they think their Mac customers don't
use add-ins like Solver and Data Analysis? Do they think we use Excel for
nothing more than arranging numbers on a spreadsheet? If we were that dumb,
we wouldn't be Mac users, would we?

Of course they don't.

OTOH they announced a *long* time ago that they wouldn't be able to
support VBA this release. Waiting an additional year or two to release
this version for the vast majority of Mac Office users who don't use VBA
wasn't a viable option.

As a professor of operations research, you should certainly understand,
and probably approve, of this decision among the unpalatable options.
You might consider using it as a case study for your students!

While they didn't also announce specifically that Solver and the ATP
wouldn't work, it was a logical inference, since they both add-ins use
VBA. I think they made a big mistake by not making that explicit,
though, since many people obviously didn't make the connection.

The Mac Business Unit certainly knows that the lack of Solver is a major
problem for some users (and from the response here, perhaps a larger
fraction of users than they thought). It's on their list of things to
fix, if they can. Whether they can, and if so, when, hasn't been
announced.

There's better news with the ATP, of course, since all the ATP functions
are now built-in, and nearly everything else that the ATP did can be
done with built-in XL functions (which is what the ATP did behind the
scenes, for the most part), though certainly less conveniently (at least
the god-awful ATP Random Number Generator is finally dead!).

Don't know how you contacted MS, but letting them know you want Solver
and ATP wizards back via Help/Send Feedback... is a good thing. Venting
your disgust probably won't be as effective.

BTW - the people who post here aren't MS employees (with rare
exceptions). We're fellow users.

 

[Phillip Jones]

Oh, nothing of interest for me.

See

http://solver.com/

XL's solver is a cut-down version of the products at that site.

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<http://www.vpea.org>

 

[Alex]

Dropping solver is not a trivial thing. Its use is required by virtually every MBA candidate and business student, not to mention the teaching community. Of course, it also used by analysts and anyone who needs to solve an optimization problem. As education is a core target segment of the Mac, Microsoft should have been aware of how students use Office on the Mac. Its not a small niche group that uses solver - its a disproportionately large part of the core customer base.

Case in point - Microsoft should have started day one with their customer's needs in mind. Its not on operations problem - its a problem of understanding who your customer is and beginning with the end in mind.

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Buckeye,

In addition to McGimpsey¹s comments, I urge you and anyone else affected to
send feedback to Microsoft explaining how you use Solver and why it¹s
inclusion with Excel is essential.

The URL to do this is:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/suggestions.mspx?product=excel

A few postings in the newsgroups would mean that people read them, grumble,
maybe go away in disgust, but Microsoft won¹t know how many were affected
unless each one sends at a comment about their usage to the URL.

-Jim



Quoting from "(e-mail address removed)"

I have been an Excel user going all the way back to 1986 with version 1.00 for
the Mac. Every upgrade I have purchased since then offered more back for the
buck, especially Excel 98, Excel V.x, and Excel 2004.

Sadly, Microsoft has ended this streak with Excel 2008, I fear. I have used
the Solver numerous times and its omission from Excel 2008 represents a value
decrease for this product. It would appear that I am going to remain on Office
2004, which is still a better overall suite than iWork '08. Of all the Office
programs, I use Excel the most, and its diminished value means that I cannot
justify the upgrade.

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

I'm very disapointed that Solver & DAT are missing from Excel 2008. I use
Solver daily so it looks like I'll have to keep using my PC...

Solver is also a staple in many business and finance courses.

I wonder what the folks in the MacBU were thinking?

Hi,

I don¹t know what they were thinking.

But you can tell MacBU what you are thinking by using this link:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/suggestions.mspx?product=excel

What you wrote here is eloquent and succinct. Tell the same thing to
Microsoft (this public newsgroup is not necessarily read by Microsoft
employees).

Thanks.

-Jim

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Dropping solver is not a trivial thing. Its use is required by virtually
every MBA candidate and business student, not to mention the teaching
community. Of course, it also used by analysts and anyone who needs to
solve an optimization problem. As education is a core target segment of the
Mac, Microsoft should have been aware of how students use Office on the Mac.
Its not a small niche group that uses solver - its a disproportionately
large part of the core customer base. <br><br>Case in point - Microsoft
should have started day one with their customer's needs in mind. Its not on
operations problem - its a problem of understanding who your customer is and
beginning with the end in mind.

You assert that Solver is used by a disproportionately large part of the
customer base. Do you have numbers? I'm sure that MS does...

But even assuming that MacBU underestimated the use of Solver (and I
agree they probably did at least somewhat), I'm not sure what you
expected them to change.

They presumably made the decision to drop VBA (and therefore Solver) due
to a lack of resources needed to do everything else they needed to do
and VBA. Market knowledge doesn't generate those resources.

The only option I see is to delay release until VBA was finished. You
still would be using XL04, so no different than today.

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Chris,

VBA is not included in any of the Office 2008 versions.

If you want it back, please send feedback for each product requesting its
return.

Use this URL
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/suggestions.mspx?product=excel

Thanks.

-Jim

Does anyone know if VBA is included in one of the other 2 editions, not the
Student teacher one. I need VBA it for work and want to buy the version that
has it.

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Yikes!

The COS function is included with Excel 2008 (all editions).

Solver, on the other hand, is a visual basic add-in. There is no VBA in an
edition of Office 2008.

No VBA means no solver. An upgrade to Excel 2004 may be what you need.

Please take a moment to tell Microsoft what you did and your experience with
Excel 2008 so far:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/suggestions.mspx?product=excel

Thanks.

-Jim

I've bought the student at first at noticed solver wasn't included and bought
the standard edition hoping to find it and also for the exchange function of
cos but solver wasn't included as well so i doubt any version would have
solver

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Where are the Add-Ins that I had in Excel 2004?

Add-ins are visual basic macros. VBA was removed from Office 2008, so it is
no longer possible to use or create add-ins. You can complain about that
fact here:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/suggestions.mspx?product=excel

Where is the Histogram function that I had in Excel 2004?

The histogram function is a VBA add-in, so it won¹t work and it¹s gone in
Excel 2008.

So far, I'm not impressed and would like a refund.

More problems. Right on the box it says to go here to find the license
terms:
http://www.microsoft.com/useterms/

If you use that URL the Office 2008 product isn¹t even listed as one of the
choices!

I don¹t know what to tell you. Call Microsoft support and ask them. Office
2004 had a 90 day money back warranty. I don¹t know what it is for Office
2008.

-Jim


--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Alex,

Microsoft has been itching to get rid of VBA for quite some time. When Apple
switched to Intel processors the VBA compiler died, as it was programmed for
PPC processors. So at that juncture they made a decision to ditch VBA on the
Mac and go ahead with Office 2008 without it. The 2008 version would have
had to be delayed 2 or more years if they had decided to keep VBA, and I
think they were hoping they could permanently get rid of VBA beginning with
this release.

As soon as I found out that VBA was going away (they announced it quite some
time ago) I expressed to Microsoft what you just said ­ that the higher
education market will be heavily affected. So much so that I don¹t know
whether or not most people in higher education will be able to use Office
2008. I work at a large University and am uncertain how I will recommend
that we proceed with this new version.

Your message is important and should be sent to Microsoft at this URL:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/suggestions.mspx?product=excel

State your case, but also include your credentials along with details about
the scenarios you described. From the wording you used it sounds like you
are an influencer in the higher education sector. Your feedback at this
juncture would be appreciated.

Thanks.

-Jim



Quoting from "Alex" <Alex>, in article (e-mail address removed)9absDaxw,

Dropping solver is not a trivial thing. Its use is required by virtually
every MBA candidate and business student, not to mention the teaching
community. Of course, it also used by analysts and anyone who needs to solve
an optimization problem. As education is a core target segment of the Mac,
Microsoft should have been aware of how students use Office on the Mac. Its
not a small niche group that uses solver - its a disproportionately large part
of the core customer base.

Case in point - Microsoft should have started day one with their customer's
needs in mind. Its not on operations problem - its a problem of
understanding who your customer is and beginning with the end in mind.

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info