Developing Web Apps for Excel 2013

FrExcel

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Joined
Jul 29, 2012
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54
Hello everybody! I hope it is the correct section for this post as it is somehow ambiguous.

I am trying to stay ahead of the curve with Excel and I noticed that the new version is going to introduce Web Apps; as it is still a little bit fuzzy in my head I wondered if some of you experts would be kind enough to help me clarify my perceptions about this new version.

From what I understand they have opened Excel and Office to new languages such as HTML5/ Javascript... My questions are the following:

1- Do you think Microsoft is trying to replace VBA with more standard languages in this version? I have the impression that they are going to favor the App business-model, which they can centralize and earn a commission on; rather than pushing VBA code which is less easier to control by essence.

2- Do you think newly implemented languages can be more powerful than VBA?

3- What do you think is the best language or combination such as HTML5 + JavaScript to develop an app?

Thank you very much in advance for your insights!
 
To the best of my knowledge the RT versions of Office 2013 do not support VBA but do support web apps so from that point of view learning
JavaScript may be useful, though I don't know how much of, or how well, the excel object model is exposed to the web apps.
Indeed, Office 365 does not support VBA as well; my point of view is that they are trying to shift their business model toward Office as a SaaS and in the process they are gearing toward web technologies in order to get a piece of the App market.
As apps are connecting through Office API the environment is "sandboxed" and more secure.

The question remaining in my mind is also the extent to which the Application will be able to use Excel functions, because if it only uses Excel for data input it would be somehow limited...
 
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