Excel 2016 & beyond!

New Year is a good time to talk about ............. Excel!
(well, when there is a new version out, why not).

So, I'm keen to know what our Forum experts think about the future of Excel.

• what sort of usage will grow (or will reduce).
  Where would the power-users (consultants, analysts) go? If not Excel, then what? And if Excel, than what more would they like it to be able to do?
• any open-source (or other) alternatives that may catch up to Excel?
• what's really new in the new version? I mean from a user's perspective. (I'm hoping there's a lot more than a million more rows and columns)
• Excel Development? (what will become of VBA in this new world of Cloud, Cross-Platform, Multi-Device Access? will it get replaced by something else? if so, with what?)
• Will development solutions become Universal? (or remain local/individual implementations). By Universal, I mean like an Excel App Store - download the add-ins you want, for the devices you have. (Btw, is something like this already there? .... pardon my ignorance).
• what about charting / data visualization? Anything new or upcoming there - Interactive / Intuitive Charts?
• lastly, what will the end client be willing to pay for? (same stuff but cheaper price/subscription, or will they demand more service, more integration, more multi-device harmony).

Look forward to some insightful and interesting responses.
Cheers!

Have you read the comments from Leith Ross in this thread?

http://www.excelforum.com/the-water-...rning-vba.html

See post #6

Alf

Hi Alf,
Thanks for your response and the link.

In fact, I did read that particular thread prior to this post; and as informative as it is, one found it to be very 'developer' centric. Whilst the direction/future of Excel Development is one of the things I'm keenly interested to know of, there is so much more to Excel from end-user & usage perspective. I'm hoping that interested Forum members, and Experts as yourselves, would share their thoughts/views/experiences/opinions on some of that as well.

Everyone's 2 cents may collectively become invaluable moolah for some (if not all).

Regards,
Jewel

There is no competitor to excel on the pipeline unless Google mimics excel- that would be one of the biggest law suite by two giants and would be lawyers' dinner.
MS has been focusing on BI part of the business. The future is cloud.
VBA will be a legacy thing and MS will keep it for compatibility issues.

The future is cloud.

Would experts please share some more about this. I'm keen to know what would Excel 'cloud' development be like.

Well, your data sits somewhere on the cloud, but more likely to be in Hyderabad or Manila( Because they are cheap locations).
If you talk to tekies, they will be less happy if you use the words "On-line" and "Cloud" as interchangeably, but I am not a tekie.
MS has been developing and marketing Office 365 for over 10 years. Office 365 is neither a cloud, nor on-line version, but some kind of accessing your office documents on-line.
My guess is, MS will eventually move over the entire office applications in to a cloud where by you access your beloved excel and data through a browse as you do with your Google and Hotmail mails. This is going to be, however, a long way to go- may be another 10 years. In the mean time, something might crop-up as you never know what is around with the pace of technology.