<p>My son is surprised how many Business Majors showed up with Macs... that can't run the Excel programs and some others required for Business classes. These poor kids spent all this money on expensive Apple computers... only to be told they will be spending LOTS of time in the library on University computers to get homeowrk done.
Because my DH and I have our own business we avoided the Macs... but was wondering if anybody got surprised by this? Seems a real shame...</p>
<p>because you can’t run a virtual version of windows with excel…</p>
<p>There is a Mac version of office (including excel). In my experience, it can’t run the macros that the Windows version can, but it should still work in most cases. Otherwise, you can dual boot, which should run excel fine.</p>
<p>They can always download windows 7 on the bootcamp partition on the Mac and then download office. So technically they can. Or they can download parallels 8 and do it from there.</p>
<p>This is in fact a mac’s only weakness and the reason why PCs still exist today and all the big corporations run on them. I really wish mac would just get its **** together on this pressing issue… it does present a considerable predicament for many.</p>
<p>Also not sure how reliable it would be, but aren’t there PCs that can be purchased for dirt cheap that could be used as a supplemental computer? Or would those be way too temperamental to work with?</p>
<p>Mac’s only weakness? What about price? Upgradeability? Stuck in OpenGL 2.1? Closed platform?</p>
<p>If you love your Mac, fine, but Mac fans should realize that its expense and closed-off nature ensure that it’s not merely MS’s fault that Mac isn’t number one.</p>
<p>As another poster pointed out, there is a Mac version of MS Office, which includes Excel. And, yes, it can run macros.
BTW, Excel was first developed as a Mac program.</p>
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<p>I don’t know if this has changed with a new update or something, but from personal experience, it certainly cannot do everything that the windows version can. Unless there’s some sort of monumental thing that me and my entire lab is missing here.</p>
<p>You can run a pc operating system on mac fairly easy. It is all preference. If you want a mac you have to make some sacrifices but the business world is transitioning to Mac’s as well.</p>
<p>To be honest, you would only have to make very little sacrifices. Mac has the ability to run both Windows and OS X on the same HD; and even at the same time with some Virtual Machine programs. This is something a windows computer wouldn’t be able to do sufficiently at all (with the MAC OS X software installed).</p>
<p>That’s because of Apple’s policies with their OS, Windows can run virtual operating systems and you can install another OS alongside Windows on the HD.</p>