Solver in Excel 2008?

What is Solver? and what does it do?

JE McGimpsey wrote:
> In article <ee88ac9.10.TakeThisOut@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw>,
> Buckeye_Jack.TakeThisOut@officeformac.com wrote:
>
>> I have been an Excel user going all the way back to 1986 with version 1.00
>> for the Mac.
>
> Late adopter! <g>
>
> I got a copy of XL0.9 in (IIRC) late 1984. XL's parent Multiplan before
> that.
>
>> Every upgrade I have purchased since then offered more back for
>> the buck, especially Excel 98, Excel V.x, and Excel 2004.
>
> Agree on 98 and 04. I found XLv.X mostly a port to OS X native. Not
> running in Classic added value, of course.
>
>> 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.
>
> 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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<http://www.vpea.org>
 >> Stay informed about: Solver in Excel 2008? 

In article <udY0UTtWIHA.5396 DeleteThis @TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl>,
"Phillip Jones, CET" <pjones1 DeleteThis @kimbanet.com> wrote:

> 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.
 >> Stay informed about: Solver in Excel 2008? 

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?

DoreMacUser wrote:
> 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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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 |pjones@kimbanet.com, ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
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<http://www.vpea.org>
 >> Stay informed about: Solver in Excel 2008? 

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.

DoreMacUser wrote:
> 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 |pjones@kimbanet.com, ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto:pjones@kimbanet.com

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
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<http://www.vpea.org>
 >> Stay informed about: Solver in Excel 2008? 

Phillip Jones, CET <pjones1.RemoveThis@kimbanet.com> wrote:

> What is Solver? and what does it do?

Solver saves a lot of time and trouble.
 >> Stay informed about: Solver in Excel 2008? 

<marcushe DeleteThis @officeformac.com> wrote:

> 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 :-(
 >> Stay informed about: Solver in Excel 2008? 

In article <ee88ac9.29 RemoveThis @webcrossing.caR9absDaxw>, daalsdad <> wrote:

> 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.
 >> Stay informed about: Solver in Excel 2008? 

Oh, nothing of interest for me.

JE McGimpsey wrote:
> In article <udY0UTtWIHA.5396 DeleteThis @TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl>,
> "Phillip Jones, CET" <pjones1 DeleteThis @kimbanet.com> wrote:
>
>> 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.

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------------------------------------------------------------------------
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616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |pjones@kimbanet.com, ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

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<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
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<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>
 >> Stay informed about: Solver in Excel 2008? 

In article <ee88ac9.32.TakeThisOut@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw>, Alex <> wrote:

> 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.
 >> Stay informed about: Solver in Excel 2008? 

In article <ee88ac9.40.TakeThisOut@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw>, Bofus.TakeThisOut@officeformac.com
wrote:

> Probably too late for many, but your old version of Excel can co-exist with
> the new version. During 2008 installation, do not select "delete previous
> versions of Office..." near the end of the installation process.
> <br><br>Regards,

It shouldn't be too late for anyone - you can always reinstall XL04.
 >> Stay informed about: Solver in Excel 2008? 

In article <ee88ac9.42.TakeThisOut@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw>, <> wrote:

> Solver is important to my research work and I have come to rely on it. Surely
> Microsoft has to offer an alternative solution. New products generally get
> more features not fewer

Make sure you send feedback via Help/Send Feedback... to let MacBU know
how important it is to you.

Solver is a casualty of not being able to include VBA in Office 2008.
MacBU certainly knows that its removal is painful for some users.
Whether, and if so when, a fix can be made depends on both the technical
difficulty and competing priorities.

In the mean time, if other aspects of Office 2008 make it worthwhile to
use (and there *are* lots of new features), you can still run XL04 with
Office 2008.
 >> Stay informed about: Solver in Excel 2008? 

In article <ee88ac9.44.TakeThisOut@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw>, "DB MacDonald. MD" <>
wrote:

> The lack of Solver and VBA support are simply unacceptable. I use both
> extensively in research applications. There are many, many things that cannot
> be done without these features.

Then make sure you use Help/Send Feedback to tell MS exactly how you use
Solver and VBA.

FWIW, "simply unacceptable" isn't really particularly helpful. It's not
like MacBU just decided to remove VBA support (and with it, Solver) on a
whim. Their decision was a matter of time and available resources. They
didn't have the resources to bring it along in the timeframe of this
release.

Whether, and if so, when, a fix becomes available depends on market
demand, technical difficulty, and resource allocation. Of the three, we
can only really affect one, so make sure your voice is heard.
 >> Stay informed about: Solver in Excel 2008? 

The loss of solver will kill the use of Office at the undergraduate level. As an instructor I am required to make sure that my examples and homework problems can be done by students who own Mac's or PC's. I use solver extensively for small optimization problems - but I will no longer be able to do that.<br>
<br>
Creating significant functional discrepancies in the same software between the two hardware platforms means that the software cannot be adopted on EITHER platform in educational environments where it is difficult to prescribe that students buy one platform or the other.
 >> Stay informed about: Solver in Excel 2008?