Office 2003 Does It Really Excel

Uniontown, Ohio, October 21, 2003

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

400 MILLION Microsoft Excel users will decide whether to purchase the shiny, new Microsoft Office 2003 that has been released in fanfare events across the globe.

But a survey at MrExcel.com indicates they need more than the new upgrade to achieve efficiency goals. Microsoft Excel consultant Bill Jelen - known as "Mr. Excel" of the MS Office solutions portal MrExcel.com website - polled 2000 Excel users and found that the top 10 features in Excel’s older versions were underused.

”The new version may not be the panacea to repetitive data tasks,” said Jelen. To date, less than half of the users polled were using the top 10 power features: Pivot Tables, Array Formulas, Automatic Subtotals and others power tools.

“The big software firms are good at pushing upgrades, but they drop the ball when it comes to using their product,” says Jelen, an Excel usage consultant. “The problem is not with the software, but in the training of those who use it,” Jelen says. “If most people aren’t using Excel properly, upgrading won’t speed their repetitive data tasks. If your job every day is to import data, subtotal it, and print it, I can write a code in about an hour that will allow you to simply press a button."

Bill Jelen is the author of Mr Excel ON EXCEL, published in April 2003 as the definitive “How To” for unlocking money and time saving secrets of Excel; Guerilla Data Analysis Using Microsoft Excel; and CD ROMS: 1600 Excel VBA Examples and Excel Knowledge Base (a Q&A archive). Jelen's books, utilities and other MS Office usage tools are available at Amazon.com, Borders Books, Barnes and Noble, Micro Center and at www.MrExcel.com.

For More Information: Bonnie Hilliard, Pipeline MediaSource (330) 342-7964