The Stupidity of Office 07

[jstiene]

Is it just me or is Office 07 one of the stupidest business decissions ever made?

Here people have been telling me about open office, and other suites replacing MS Office and me telling them corporations would never go for retraining 100,000 employees on a new office suite.

So what does Microsoft do? Come out with a version of Office in 07 that removes all the menu items, replaces them with tabs, and makes its COMPETITORS OFFICE VERSIONS EASIER FOR USERS TO LEARN THAN THEIR OWN OFFICE SUITE.

What in the hell? I can see how there was no gradual way to introduce tabs with icons. But why the giant icons, and more importantly, why REMOVE all the old menu items so customers are totally screwed trying to find familiar functionality?

I dont think there is even any option of putting the menus back. Do they just think that strong arming everyone into a new version and forcing them to learn it when the stop licensing XP and 03 will force people to buy new software without millions of people being very, very pissed off?

I did an upgrade on Access from 97 to 07 a few weeks ago for a company and could barely find my way around Excel and Access. I had to make a form with all the old menu options, opening traditional windows.

I've seen software that supposedly puts 07 back the way it was, but is an exe and I don't trust it, and don't have a version of 07 here.

Luckily the backend is pretty much the same for Excel and just about everything that works in XP and 03 will still work, though if you have backend references some things might be missing if they are old, like DAO 2.5-3.5.

And in Access, forget it. They totally messed with the interface. Why does everything have to look like a web page now with left top and middle sections? They did this with .net, Office, and supposedly Vista has done similar things?

What moron decided to risk their monopoly on office suites and operating systems forcing radical change on customers?

 

[gwkenny]

...and why do they not draw the full conclusions ?

Hi, I'm stupid. Just what is the full conclusion?

 

[lalbatros]

The full conclusion is:

- use personal applications for personal purpose
- use business applications for business purpose

and since efficient business means integration, forbit spreasdheets in business applications.
This investment might reveal much cheaper and much more efficient than the usual spaghetti-organisation that builds around spreadsheet and individuals.

The reason why MS-Office sells is individualism. But this is mainly incompatible with organisation.
(but there are small business and individuals too)

(by the way: this is just an open-reasoning, I earn my living in great part on this way of working !)

 

[gwkenny]

I think your full conclusion is not insightful because it fails to take into account the way business is performed. Much like communism fails to take into account personal selfishness over-riding the "good of the state".

It could be an "ideal" to aspire to, but there are just not enough business applications to serve business needs, so many would have to be custom made and that can be prohibitively expensive.

And for some business segments a programmable spreadsheet is the best application to serve that business need: for example, project finance, investment banking in general, etc...

As for your citations of eusprig.... Yes, they have a point, but their parochialism shines through in almost all of it's documentation. But spreadsheets in and of themselves are not the problem. The problem in most of the cases is monitoring and oversight. Not the use/design of the spreadsheets.

The same arguments eusprig uses for spreadsheets you can say about cars. Spreadsheets are integral to business in London.... BLAH BLAH BLAH

Cars are integral to business in London.... BLAH BLAH BLAH

Some business that have spreadsheets as a critical part of business is well controlled, some are not. BLAH BLAH BLAH

Some business that have cars as a critical part of business is well controlled, some are not. BLAH BLAH BLAH

Check out the rest of their arguments. Substitute cars for spreadsheet and almost all the arguments hold. It's nothing new!

I find their conclusions as spurious as their arguments. They say investment banking is an area where spreadsheets are "well controlled" yet "financial markets" is an area where the use is relative uncontrolled. Basically it's a load of crap as investment banks is a significant part of financial markets and the oversight in investment banks varies significantly between department to department as IB's are a conglomeration of personal fiefdoms operating within the wide band of rules set down by the regulatory agencies and their financial controllers.

Many of the problems that due occur have to deal with oversight and someone either not doing their job and/or improper checks and balances.

What answers are Eusprig offering? Can't the same be applied to cars????


If the conclusions you cited are so obvious, why isn't everyone jumping on the bandwagon? People aren't smart in general (look at all the people who smoke - sorry smokers) but if this is such a pervasive business truth, don't you think more people would be doing it?

 

[lalbatros]

gwkenny,

I like Excel very much, I did incredible things with Excel, and like individualism.

But it is also my own experience that business often need organisation.
That's simply obvious.
If you want to organize, or design, a business, you will very quickly see that spreadsheets are not a good basis for a good organisation.
I know what it leads to when hundreds ot thousands of spreadsheets are exchanged in an organisation.
And what it leads to when Sap (for example) if fed by pre-processed data from spreadsheet.

It leads to inconsistent, non traceability, undefined business rules, unmanageable process, unocumented process, ... , and even the individuals become frustrated and ask for organization.

So the comparison with communism is doubtful.
There is no human-right question, no military involved, no dictators, and freedom of speech and action is not threatened.
But if you feel that organization is the main fingerprint of communism, then ok, it is communism.
However, as far as I can remember, the communist dictators have never been really good at organization.
They achieved sometimes big objectives, but at a much higer cost that in organized and democratic countries.

Believe me: beware of spreasheets in organizations.
Just think about linking files. Personally I never do that.

 

[Greg Truby]

I grinned when I read gwkenny's reference to communism because that exact same comparison came to my mind also when I read your "take away all their Excel & Access". I do not speak for him of course, but at least to me I was not thinking in terms of a "human rights violation" POV; but rather from a "central planning never works" perspective.

I have not spent enough time in the loo to finish reading the entire paper on the City of London... but I did read the shorter paper (thanks for those links). I did not sense that they were saying to pull Excel from everyone's toolkit. My take-away was that a company should treat spreadsheet creation the same as it treats many subjects. Control/access/oversight should increase as mission criticality increases. Companies need to do a better job of educating folks on good workbook design and at least think about workbook auditing.

I do think it probably is an issue that gets short shrift. But I don't think the solution lies in a centrally planned schema with its inherent bottlenecks. Any organization need the flexibility and fleetness of foot to react quickly. Centralization inhibits this. A good organization (in theory) foments this. I think Kenny's automotive metaphor serves here as well. We can't have everyone making up their own rules of the road. Some type of overall traffic laws do need to be put in place. But there's a reason why folks like cars -- they can go where busses & trains can't. [And I have a pickle of a time gettin' a pickup load of sheetrock and plywood onto a bus.]

 

[gwkenny]

Your argument is not sound because your premise is faulty.

If you want to organize, or design, a business, you will very quickly see that spreadsheets are not a good basis for a good organisation.
I know what it leads to when hundreds ot thousands of spreadsheets are exchanged in an organisation.

Spreadsheets are just tools. They CAN be used as a good basis for a good organisation. It's being done in millions of companies everyday. Just like there are millions of companies who are operating poorly that have spreadsheets as a core business tool.

As I've stated before, it's oversight and checks and balances. Just like a car can be a good basis for a good organisation.

Like with Eusprig, I can substitute cars in your arguments. Take a cab company. The car is the central tool. But without good oversight (maintenance), checks and balances (inspections when cabs are checked in and out), then you've got, "...inconsistent, non traceability, undefined business rules, unmanageable process, unocumented process".

With good oversight and checks and balances you have, ummm, a GOOD profitable cab company!

The following example you cite is extremely poor:

And what it leads to when Sap (for example) if fed by pre-processed data from spreadsheet.

Any intelligent IT person knows you do not feed pre-processed data from a spreadsheet into an Enterprise wide program like SAP or Oracle. Enterprise wide applications are built to take in raw data and process it into managable and informative chunks of data. The example you cite is not inherently bad because data was fed from a spreadsheet into SAP, but because someone was not doing their job in the SAP implimentation.

I do want to say though that you CAN have data fed into SAP by a pre-processed spreadsheet if there was enough oversight and checks to insure that the spreadsheet contained valid data and the process was viable. Not optimal, but viable.

Believe me: beware of spreasheets in organizations.

Give me a sound logical argument and you'll convince me. Telling me to believe you is inane. Should I start giving my money to televangelists that say "believe me?"

Just think about linking files. Personally I never do that.

Excel files? Or just any files? I know of several healthcare companies that have been targeted as rollup/rollout company for consolidation in the industry. The reason? Linked files. Almost everything was electronic with little paperwork. Basically everything was linked. Medical records, hospital, insurance, and government paperwork, communications, and most any and all files. Including pertinent spreadsheets.

So the comparison with communism is doubtful.
There is no human-right question, no military involved, no dictators, and freedom of speech and action is not threatened.
But if you feel that organization is the main fingerprint of communism, then ok, it is communism.

No, the comparison to communism holds despite the fact that you put words in my mouth by stating I "feel that organization is the main fingerprint of communism".

Again, let me reiterate: I am saying your argument does not hold because you fail to take into account how business is performed. Much like communism fails to take into account personal selfishness over-riding the "good of the state".

How do you fail to take into account how business is performed? Most people are in jobs where they don't perform to the best of their abilities. What most people do is satisfyce the minimum demands necessary to keep their jobs. That, combined with people operating with selfish parochial viewpoints leads to spaghetti organisations with undocumented processes if no one is keeping an eye on things and checks and balances are not installed within the organization. It's not because of the tools used (whether that be spreadsheets, cars, airplanes, dogs, cats, what have you).

************************

It's ironic you are the one talking about dicators not being good at organization. I never brought that up.

The irony is that YOU are the one saying spreadsheets should be banned and things should be 'centrally done' in business apps. I'm the one saying that spreadsheets isn't the big "evil", it's not having oversight and checks and balances (the core of the United States constitution - ummmm not a communist country!).

lol

 

[lalbatros]

My comments were essentially based on my own experience at work.
Of course, removing Excel totally is more a joke than a real suggestion.
But when I see how the business is organized in my compagny (2000 people locally and 50000 people worldwide) I am really terrified.
The use of spreadsheet is really an absurdity that encourage data hiding and falsification and that at least creates bad organization and misinformation.
I think to real examples.
Like many source of data for the same thing, leading to contradicting reports.
Like undefined data.
Like 10 xl files being used for feeding Sap with monthly material consumption.
And I could continue for hours writing examples.

But I still would like to stress that most user, realy are IT amateurs at best.
Actuallay they even don't know a lot about excel. I am quite sure that most of then can create mistake by simple copy/pasgte operations. Most of them just don't know how to organize data correctly. Most cannot create a normalized list suitable for pivot tables. Most of them are using 100 different formulas per sheet without any fear. (for myself I become suspicious when I use mor than a few formulas per sheet). ... And most of them are just wasting their time with Excel, simply because there is a lack of IT leadership.

Does Excel 2007 help in any way to improve this picture?
I am sure it doesn't.

 

[lalbatros]

gwkenny,

Why do you think that "I fail to take into account how business is performed?".
I simply state my personal experience in a large company.
See my previous post.

Also observe other businesses.
IT today is so powerful that centralization will be a natural trend.
Just look at google and the information centralization.

You talked about Sap, I can only agree with your comment, since it simply support my own view.
But what you missed is that 90% of the compagnies simply fail today to use Sap in an integrated way.
They just fool themeselfes to think they do, but from the top of the management, they don't see the mess below their feet.
That's precesily like in the communist countries: they believe in an ideal world and don't see the reality.

On the contrary, the few 10% of well IT organized business have analysed correctly their business process and design their IT in consequence.

Finally, note that this is not an emotional comment, but it is just a logical deduction from my personal observations.
I used black and white simply to enhance the contrast and make things clear.
Otherwise, I am using Excel extensively myself for nearly everything, and I like very much to help people and to create tool for people. But by doing so I was also surprised by the general inefficiency.
I would like to encourage people to know more about IT and Excel, but I also realize that Excel is also an obstacle to organization.

 

[gwkenny]

but I also realize that Excel is also an obstacle to organization.

You're not going to get it until you realize that Excel is just a tool, but not an obstacle in and of itself. It's how it is utilized that you are really complaining about.

logical deduction from my personal observations....

I used black and white simply to enhance the contrast and make things clear.

On the contrary. I've taken apart your "logical" deductions by taking your black and white [examples] and proving them false as well as proving the basis of your deductions false. Yet you still cannot see what I'm saying.

For example, you state my comments on your SAP example supports your view. Ummm, no it does not. It is the implimentation of Excel (and not inherently Excel itself) that is the problem. Excel should NEVER been on the front end of the information workflow of an Enterprise program. It should be used at the backend to facilitate the extraction of useful actionable information.

Again, Excel is just a tool, but you are not seeing that so any further discussion is not really constructive.

On the contrary, the few 10% of well IT organized business have analysed correctly their business process and design their IT in consequence.

Where does 10% come from? Who determines what a well organized business is?

Why do you think that "I fail to take into account how business is performed?".

I significant amount of my previous communication was spent on this already. Sorry, given the fact that you cannot see Excel is just a tool and not an obstacle in and of itself, I don't think we're going to get further on this topic either We just are not communicating.

*******************************

Regarding your specific company: If there is truly a lack of IT leadership, and it is so "black and white" to you, then you should do what a consulting company would do if they came in to examine your company.

Take your experience, give yourself a 3-month deadline, and write a white paper on how IT is being implimented at your company. The weak points, the strong points, and what could be done as well as the benefits of any actions that could be taken.

Then communicate that (anonymously if you want to dodge the fallout) to the decision makers of your Company.

At the very least, it should be clear that the SAP implimentation is shoddy and need to be re-examined.

 

[lalbatros]

I always agree with your observations, gwkenny.
For example:

Excel should NEVER been on the front end of the information workflow of an Enterprise program.

This is just an example of what I am saying.

Again, back to what I know, if our IT decided to remove any XL file in upstream or downstream Sap and implement all tools that the people need, I am sure that 90 of the Excel files would simply disappear.
Of course, I don't mind using XL for "finishig" purposes like a few final calculations and preparing a power point.
But this is not what happens.
Data are collected in XL, data are exchanged in XL, and data are processed in XL.
And results from SAP, are depending on the correctes of XL spreadsheet.
And I am quite sure that my company is not the only one in this situation. At least the whole business is like that.

But I am sure there are exceptions to this bleak view.
Like the car industry. They just could not work with an XL chaos.

Personally I have two kind of XL applications mainly.

The first is dealing with technical and economical optimization, mainly linear programming.
I use XL as a very convenient interface and a very good way to provide personal tools for these topics.
These applications are -say- strategic and are outside the business mainstream.

The second kind of application is enegineering process simulation.
Starnge enough, the industry standard tools (like Aspen) are just plain ridiculous in my domain.
Therefore I developped a Java package that I use from XL.
I assemble the flowsheet on an XL sheet and I simulate every detail I need.
The whole system relies on only a few user-defined functions (simulate, getproperties and two variants).
I am happy with that and can beat any expensive mainstream product.
Again, that's not in the business mainstream and is really a personal application.

I don't want to forbid excel totally, I just suggest that in the business mainstream it not a suitable tool.
Just the same as what you are saying, but with other words.
And of course, I don't see why you came with this "communism" question.
Would you be a communist if you said that "XL should never be in the front of ..." ??

In addition, I have much respect to all these communist people who believed in a better world and were exploited by dictators.