Fred - STOP THE PRESSES - ANOTHER MATH BUG HAS BEEN FOUND!!!!!!
A minor - VERY MINOR - amount of attention concerning a serious math bug in EXCEL 97 has been given by the Media Press. It is the third such BUG to be found in the last 6 months!
Change the name from MICROSOFT in this article to INTEL - and this BUG would be the most serious offense in the annals of COMPUTERDOM!
Every major press publication would be leading with 72 point headlines concerning the latest INTEL goof up. Sixty Minutes would can their regularly scheduled program for this evening (Sunday) and run a 60 minute special on the "crapola" coming from Intel, predictions of a massive recall, BILLIONS and BILLIONS of lost revenue, class action law suits being filed by "Smellberg, Slime and LeLeach", attorneys at ambulance chasing, Intel's prestige being flushed down the toilet!
The Internet USENET groups would have millions of postings DEMANDING THAT INTEL CORRECT the problem by 8:00 AM tomorrow with a complete replacement program - everybody would be damning Intel while praising the superlative engineering of its competition!
Instead - Microsoft gets a minor headline in one or two publications and maintains a 50+ P/E ratio!
I guess nobody said life has to be FAIR.
Paul
{==================}
zdnet.com
Excel 97 bugged again
By Lisa M. Bowman, ZDNN
March 27, 1998 1:52 PM PST
If you're using Microsoft Corp.'s Excel 97
spreadsheet, you might want to
double-check your math with your
calculator.
The spreadsheet has been plagued with yet
another bug that causes miscalculations -- the
third such glitch in the product, according to
Woody Leonhard, the author of Woody's Office
Watch and a contributor to ZDNet's help
channel.
Bug bytes
Bug hits spreadsheets
Microsoft to issue patch for recalc bug
The latest so-called "recalc bug" fails to update
numbers in certain columns to reflect changes
that have been made in other areas of a
document. The bug could throw off calculations
throughout a spreadsheet and could affect
accountants of large businesses, home users,
and everyone in between.
It's similar to another bug that Microsoft posted
a fix for just a few weeks ago. That bug affected
rows, not columns, and its fix does not resolve
the newest bug problem.
Microsoft (MSFT) was not immediately
available for comment.
The first recalculation bug in Excel 97 was
discovered in September, and Microsoft posted
a fix shortly after. Leonhard said the bugs are
built into the programs and are not the result of
viruses. |
