Spreadsheet software coming to iWork

Posted Jul 7th 2006 10:32AM by Tobias Buckell
Filed under: Rumors, Products and Services, Competitive Strategy, Apple Inc (AAPL)

Think Secret, one of many ubiquitous Apple rumor sites online, has a strong exclusive story indicating that Apple will be including a spreadsheet application in its iWork package called Charts.

Apple used to have a full software suite, Appleworks, that included a spreadsheet application, presenter, and word processor. iWork has slowly been building up to that same feature set, but with a bit more panache. Each step of the way Apple has said it isn't trying to compete with Microsoft's offerings for the platform. They'd very much like to keep Office.

One hopes this is the case. To be honest, losing Office would be a big mistake. Apple needs the familiar for switchers. But sometimes Apple can't help itself, trying to do everything. According to Think Secret's article, sources say it imports Excel sheets and will rival Excel.

It'll be interesting to see how Redmond reacts.

Tags: apple, Charts, excel, iWork, mac rumors, MacRumors, microsoft, think secret, ThinkSecret

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

7-07-2006 @ 12:30PM

JonAmien said...

Tobias Bucknell is an example of what listening to an ipod will do to your mind. Get a life!

7-07-2006 @ 1:55PM

Steve said...

"According to Think Secret's article, sources say it imports Excel sheets and will rival Excel."

No, that's not what the Think Secret article says. Think secret claims that it will be a consumer level spreadsheet (not all of the high end Excel functions). Also, they claim that "performance" will rival Excel.

While common sense would suggest a spreadsheet is coming next to iWork, there is no real evidence that Think Secret has any real information on this. The same rumor was floating around last year from Appleinsider.com about a spreadsheet application called "Numbers".

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1138

Last year, Jobs barely even mentioned the iWork upgrade after a long iLife demo. My guess is because there was very little new to show, particularly the spreadsheet application wasn't ready on time.

Finally, if there were real information about the product, it would talk about the features more. Apple is not in the business of just creating another "me too" product. With pages, it introduced "drop zones". Obviously, Keynote had much better graphics, text rendering and transitions. What new feature will Apple introduce to the spreadsheet application? I suspect we'll find out in January, but I'm more included to believe it will be in a product called "Numbers" rather than "Charts".

7-07-2006 @ 2:32PM

tobias buckell said...

JonAmien: you misspelled my name.

Steve: you make some very good points. This is also why I filed it under 'rumors.' Thanks for the correction re: "performance," I think your read is actually more accurate than mine, yes, though the thrust of this is still that if it happens, will probably compete with excel anyway (I mean iWork isn't supposed to compete with PPT at all, but it does), and claim it's consumer oriented by saying it doesn't have macros or VB integration, though one could still use Automator or Applescript anyway to achieve the same results.

7-09-2006 @ 3:16AM

Andrew Hedges said...

The biggest gap in Apple's product offerings is not having a rival to Microsoft Access. This is the biggest thing keeping a lot of small- to medium-sized organizations from switching to the Mac. If Numbers/Charts is more than a spreadsheet, more like Access, Apple will be positioning themselves for big potential gains in the enterprise.

7-09-2006 @ 4:42AM