The Tyranny of Excel
ft.com
ft.com
A lot of other programs that allowed end users to create content have fallen by the wayside, but accounting is more than capable of fighting off all comers. At some point, someone is going to get traction with a program easy enough for business and meeting IT's requirements.
1) yeah, I know its a bit over the top, but not much in certain companies
Another problem is that it mangles it inputs in unpredictable ways.
Geneticists have been forced to rename certain gene names because Excel messed them up[0].
[0] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/06/excel_gene_names/
That seems waaaayyyy low. The article referenced includes a link stating that 24% of Enron spreadsheets had errors:
https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Enron_s_S...
The following says 96% of spreadsheets have errors:
https://www.i-nth.com/resources/blog/your-spreadsheets-are-w...
That website has an excellent bibliography re spreadsheets and errors:
https://www.i-nth.com/resources/bibliography/
University of Hawaii’s College of Business Administration researchers found that 88% of 113 spreadsheets audited had errors (and a wonderful leading story about a very ironic spreadsheet financial nightmare involving Lehman Bros and Barclay bank - If you're an Excel guru, read it!):
https://vinsonedu.com/blog/88-of-all-spreadsheets-are- marred-by-errors/
"What we know about spreadsheet errors (revised 2008) by Raymond R. Panko:
https://web.archive.org/web/20191229170034/http://panko.shid...
Nonetheless, Excel rules! It seems that Excel spreadsheets will continue to proliferate until someone pries them out of accountants' and engineers' cold dead hands.