Excel hasn't evolved at all since 2003. They added a couple new chart types and changed some colors. But functionally they haven't made any significant change. In fact some grey controls have litterally not been updated in 20 years (try clicking the fx button near the formula bar with the same broken search feature since the 90s).
There are lots of things they could do. Linking data between spreadsheets or between excel and powerpoint sucks (a significant part of the user base needs to prepare decks and reports that contain lots of charts and numeric tables).
They could learn from Apple's approach with numbers where a worksheet is a canvas on which you can place multiple tables or charts or diagrams, which makes a lot more sense than the single grid per worksheet approach (think having to display two tables one above the other, you are forced to align columns of different widths, and how does the top table overflow?).
Users who need to script or create UDF are stuck with a VB6 editor that hasn't seen any update in 20y and an antiquated language.
I could continue the list for a while. These are basic core features. There might be 1000 people in the world who use power BI, and only because their IT dept set it up for them. But millions of users who's life would be made easier with the suggestions I made above.
> "They could learn from Apple's approach with numbers where a worksheet is a canvas on which you can place multiple tables or charts or diagrams"
You can do this with Excel also. When was the last time you used Excel?
> "There might be 1000 people in the world who use power BI, and only because their IT dept set it up for them."
The Power BI features in Excel come ready to use out of the box. Clearly you've never used them, but they're by far the best new features in modern Excel. Any power user of Excel that isn't exploring them is missing out.
Mark separate areas on the same worksheet as tables, set chart location to be the same worksheet as the tables. If you're bothered by the gridlines those can be turned off. Not much to it really. You can also create dashboard-style content with PowerView (which is one of the PowerBI features built into Excel).
No need to be condescending, I am a heavy excel user, possibly more than you.
Tables may be fine in Excel for data but useless for any custom logic, which is what I use the most excel for. I am not aware that tables overflow with a scrollbar like Apple's approach allows. If you need to add more rows to the top table, the bottom table goes off screen. If the top table contains a very wide column, the bottom table needs to have the same column width. These are all inconveniences that apple's approach solves (and wouldn't be very hard to implement in excel while preserving backward compatibility). I don't see how Excel tables solve any of that.
> "No need to be condescending, I am a heavy excel user, possibly more than you."
Believe what you want.
> "I am not aware that tables overflow with a scrollbar like Apple's approach allows."
If scrollbars matter to you then you can use Power View, which is one of the Power BI features available in Excel. To get a better idea of how it works, take a look at this short video:
There are lots of things they could do. Linking data between spreadsheets or between excel and powerpoint sucks (a significant part of the user base needs to prepare decks and reports that contain lots of charts and numeric tables).
They could learn from Apple's approach with numbers where a worksheet is a canvas on which you can place multiple tables or charts or diagrams, which makes a lot more sense than the single grid per worksheet approach (think having to display two tables one above the other, you are forced to align columns of different widths, and how does the top table overflow?).
Users who need to script or create UDF are stuck with a VB6 editor that hasn't seen any update in 20y and an antiquated language.
I could continue the list for a while. These are basic core features. There might be 1000 people in the world who use power BI, and only because their IT dept set it up for them. But millions of users who's life would be made easier with the suggestions I made above.