That's like suggesting we should dumb-down computer programming article titles so people ignorant of the article and anything it contains might somehow get an inkling what their missing out on.
"the Street" or "Street's estimate" or something to provide more context. I also thought "Street" was some tech thing that was competing against some Microsoft business line.
*beat the Street" is a very common term. Google N-Grams has it being roughly 1/10th as popular as the term "silicon valley" or "wall street"[1]. That's a pretty significant amount of usage.
Cortana isn't a Windows help client, rather it is an intelligent assistant and search engine. To give you a very common example, you can ask Cortana about today's weather. So not sure how that is related to "things aren't quite obvious".
> Not sure if this qualifies as an achievement. Too many questions would perhaps suggest that things aren't quite obvious.
> Wish I had a Windows box to play around and see what Cortana looks like. A variant of Clippy?
Your comment suggests that you don't know what Cortana is, so I'm not sure how you're coming to the conclusion that "Too many questions would perhaps suggest that things aren't quite obvious."
Cortana is a digital assistant, like Apple's Siri. Common queries could be things like "when's my next appointment," "what time is it in Tokyo," or "when's the next showing of Interstellar?" It doesn't reflect on Windows itself possibly being hard to use.
IME people can mistake thirst for hunger - one thinks one is very hungry but drinking some water (or other drink) and the feeling of hunger subsides, not scientific but there seems to be something in it. I wonder if there is some test for an optimum hydration level that a computer could do (visually?) or indeed if in a few decades we'll be monitored so closely in our actions in our homes (or at least those of us who are rich will) that Son-of-Siri will be telling us we should have a drink.
Probably Microsoft/Apple/Google/Buy&Large will be getting back-room deals to get their intelligent companions to order specific brands of drink for us and make recommendations when we're not quite thirsty that we need a drink "how about a Buy&Large cola"!!?
Do you use windows 10? Click the start menu and your caret is immediately in the cortana search box. The grey prompt text says "I'm cortana ask me anything". It works the same if you press the window key on your keyboard.
It sounds like they are deferring some of the revenue from licenses sold with the intention of booking it over the life of the OS, as "free" updates are released.
GAAP rulea may dictate they book the revenue over the life of the OS to better match liabilities in the form of updates. MSFT want to book all the revenue now as an "economic reality".
It sounds like they're also claiming restructurings of their phone hardware division was a "one time charge" and removing those expenses, again, to better represent the "economic reality".
>GAAP rulea may dictate they book the revenue over the life of the OS to better match liabilities in the form of updates. MSFT want to book all the revenue now as an "economic reality".
I think you might be right; the revenue should be deferred over the life of Windows 10, but their non-GAAP measure books it up front. Hence the top line beat.
Not totally a lie. There are a finite number of accounting rules applied to unique businesses all over the country and globe. However, not all these rules allow a company to fully represent the financial state of the business. Therefore, companies try to reconcile these discrepancies through management guidance and non-GAAP accounting.
As an observer, you need to make a judgement call on whether you agree with the GAAP numbers, the guidance numbers, or somewhere in between.
it seems to come down to two main points, as far as consumer tech companies go:
1. GAAP says that revenue from a software service subscription (e.g. cloud service) can only be counted as revenue once the service has been delivered, not at time of sale.
That is the standard definition for accounting and has been that way for a while:
Persuasive evidence of an arrangement exists
Delivery has occurred or services have been rendered
The seller's price to the buyer is fixed or determinable
Collectibility is reasonably assured.
Stock compensation doesn't make it not an expense. It is coming from somewhere. It is coming from the equity holders pockets therefore it is a real cost.
The basic definition is Assets=Liability+Equity.
So rewriting it E=A-L
If you you pay a person with cash:
E-C=A-C-L
When you pay person with equity:
E-X where X is equity you are losing in both cases they are equivalent. So stock option are not free and need to be treated as an expense.
Revenue deferral is a very strange term. What basically happened is Microsoft claims Windows 10 is free and gives it away to everyone, hence the non-GAAP income. However, under GAAP, they are not actually giving Windows 10 away for free. Instead, they book revenue from Windows 10 but because they aren't charging for it, they must expense it as a promotional activity. What part of this is a revenue deferral? Nowhere, really, except that revenue which should have been booked is not (because it's free).
Microsoft obviously does not want to do this since it drops their earnings by a significant amount, but I'm sure their auditors gave them shit for it. Their auditors probably also made them book impairment charges on things they didn't feel were impaired.
Revenue deferral is not strange. It probably is a company has prepaid for licenses. Licenses can't be counted as revenue until it is delivered to them. However the cash can be collected early.
Not "rules" but "guidelines". Or quite literally, "principles".
"... stock soars"
The thing is that GAAP vs Non-GAAP is pretty irrelevant unless they regularly change how they do it. If a company reports non-GAAP earnings every quarter with the same methodology, it's effectively the same as reporting GAAP. People on wall street aren't dumb. There is a reason the reaction was positive.
For the non-finance people, this is like using snake case in a camel case language or vice versa. Sure, it's an annoyance the first time you look at the project. As long as it's consistent between files, it's not really worth withdrawing from your "things I can bitch about at the dinner table" account.
This belief that Wall Street is always correct is exactly what caused the previous economic crash. Speculators don't care about a correct investment decision is about riding the trends. If people are buying, it doesn't matter if you don't agree .. you have to buy as well it works as a hedge.
btw, don't say " for the non-finance people " -> it's very arrogant and bankers are already hated as it is.
> This belief that Wall Street is always correct is exactly what caused the previous economic crash.
This is the easy over-simplification that makes for a convenient blame-game.
> Speculators don't care about a correct investment decision is about riding the trends
Speculators != Investors.
> If people are buying, it doesn't matter if you don't agree .. you have to buy as well it works as a hedge.
No. If other people are buying, you can sit there and do absolutely nothing.
> btw, don't say " for the non-finance people"
No. I'll go ahead and target my explanations to the exact people who may not understand the topic being discussed. If you feel like you're being looked down upon, that's your insecurity, not my problem.
Hacker News how far are you sinking ? Is it time to give up on you ?
You can see it's the same person with an alternate login. Social media is slowly becoming the biggest confirmation bias factory, facts became totally irrelevant in discussions.
- 1 YEAR AGO, as GAAP: Microsoft reported a $2000 millions in losses
- TODAY, as GAAP: Microsoft reported $3000 millions in profits
YET the story is spun negatively in terms of GAAP, and people will follow that negativity despite having the data literally in their faces!
In this case, what wall street takes into account is Microsoft progress in the cloud, how many physical and virtual widgets they are selling and cost's control as well as currency fluctuations, taxes, etc...
it's only "effectively the same" when you're comparing between different years at the same company. it's absolutely not the same when you're comparing different companies.
I always prefer GAAP reporting; this gives a common parlance and common description when examining multiple company sheets. Non-GAAP may capture aspects better, but GAAP gives me more context.
I'm of the opposite opinion. While I worked as an equities trader/financial analyst, we didn't move our investments around within an industry all that frequently. When buying, we'd look for a strong sector and then the strong companies within that sector. That's the only major point at which we'd compare between companies within an industry. Once invested, you're not really comparing company vs. company, you're comparing companies against themselves over time in order to evaluate the sector performance. Basically, you have JPM-Q1 vs. JPM-Q2 much more frequently than JPM-Q1 vs. GS-Q1. Non-GAAP reportings typically serve exactly that purpose. It always just comes down to your use-case.
I absolutely hate these confusing words. It is alongside of "surname" and "last name" -- why can't you just use "family name" and "given name".
While I understand an investor report needs to be precise the articles about it needs to use terms people understand. Like "this is how much money came in the doors" -- aka. income. I believe the word "revenue" is used for what a layperson would call "income" and "income" is also used but for something else.
> Microsoft said Tuesday it posted a profit of $3.1 billion in the just-ended quarter
Is that painful to write or what? Because noone else did.
Edit: for example, one could write "Microsoft have sold software and services for $22.6B and made a profit of $3.1B". That's easy. Also, I realize it's not perfect (because they also sold hardware and got money from IP deals) but it's not my task to come up with easy-to-understand phrasing and it only needs to be done once. It's just an example of how to use words that non-accountant people can understand.
Revenue and net income are standard, and (relatively) precise terms. Using "income" in place of revenue would only make it confusing to people who know the standard terms, while only marginally lessening the confusion of people who don't know them.
GAAP is basically a huge bundle of compromises between corporations and the FASB. In reality, "revenue" and "income" don't really have rigourous definitions. Quarterly figures are also often adjusted in subsequent periods. Unfortunately, many websites simply gloss over this fact and just report the stated numbers.
To complicate matters further there is US GAAP, UK GAAP, German GAAP, etc. The tl;dr of the earlier comment is that accounting reports don't usually reflect economic realities of large corporations.
I think it's more a case of there not being any singular knowable economic reality of a sufficiently large organisation -- so you agree on some principles that are at least somewhat consistent and comparable over time and between (similar) organisations.
I had a financial accounting professor who would recount the quote, "Profit is an opinion, but cash is a reality."
The 10k's we would go over took a lot of analysis to understand financially and operationally if the company is in good shape based on the stated numbers.
Definitely not true. You can manipulate cash flow. For example you can give your customer a sweet heart deal where you give your customer a massive discounts on future orders for upfront payment you get a lot of cash the current q, but you are hurting yourself in future q. You can also increase you ap and make cash flow better.you can also pay employees with stock and increase cash flow, but decrease share holder value.
Sure that's the cash flow statement. When looking at free cash flows one would take into account changes in net working capital and adjust accordingly.
Free cash flow is most commonly defined as operating cash flow minus capital expenditures
You would need to make adjustments to the cash flow if you wanted to account for the extra liabilities since that doesn't use cash in the current quarter.
My point is cash flow can be manipulated just like income statements. You really need to look at income statement, cash flow, and balance sheet to know what is going on.
Here's an alternate definition (and you'd adjust based on a given industry or company)
Start with Net income
+ expenses not using cash (such as depreciation and amortization)
- revenues not providing cash (such as recognition of deferred revenues)
- increase in working capital or + decrease in working capital
- increase in required cash balances or + decrease in required cash balances
+ interest paid in cash (recall that all firms must disclose this number)
- interest tax shield (the tax “savings” from financing charges due to the tax deductibility of interest)
- long term capital investment (including, but not limited to capital expenditures or “CAPEX”)
+ cash from sales of assets (including sales of PPE)
= Free Cash Flows to the Unlevered Firm
You'd continue on with more calculations to get to free cash flows to common equity or whatever you're interested in.
Right. I had to look up what GAAP means so I could understand non-GAAP.
GAAP - Generally Accepted Accounting Principles
So what then is non-GAAP?
But lack of standardization in these calculations, plus the potential for creative accounting, make it difficult to draw relevant comparisons among companies or draw meaningful conclusions from these statistics.[1]
Riiiiiiight.
It the article was from a financially oriented news organisation it'd make a bit more sense to use the terms of industry.
In this case, "Non-GAAP" means an earnings/revenue figure that the company produced itself. Companies usually claim this reflects economic reality but keep in mind they are free to cook up whatever numbers they want. GAAP would mean figures that adhere to general accounting rules, which independent auditors help confirm.
Generally, "Non-GAAP" can mean either IFRS or Cash Basis Accounting
Basically:
GAAP - Generally Accepted Accounting Principles = the way large corporations in the US have to account for things (assets, liabilities, equity, earnings, cash flows, etc.) --> Accruals
IFRS - International Financial Reporting Standards = how European companies account for things --> Accruals
Cash Basis Accounting = the way small businesses usually account for things
Cash Basis Accounting vs. Accrual Accounting (GAAP/IFRS/etc.)
* Cash Basis --> expenses and revenues directly match cash flows, I buy a machine that lasts 5 years today and expense the whole purchase price today
* Accrual Accounting --> expenses are recorded when "incurred" and revenues when "earned", I buy a machine that lasts 5 years today and expense the purchase price over 5 years
Individual standards (IFRS/GAAP, etc.) define these soft terms: incurred, earned, assets, debt, equity, other income, etc.
The only trouble I have with what you've said are in your examples for cash basis vs. accrual. Even on a cash basis I have to depreciate capital goods over time. The capital asset still has value regardless of my accounting method, so in a sense I've converted the cash (an asset) into a machine (another kind of asset). I still expense over time under the cash method because I'm representing things like wear and obsolescence rather than showing the commitment to an expense vs. the actual settlement of that commitment.
I think it's easier to demonstrate on the revenue side: if I sell a customer something and give them 30 days to pay, under the cash method I don't record the sale until I actually receive the cash whereas under the accrual method I record the sale when I invoice the customer: in the cash basis Accounts Receivable is basically a non-booking account and under the accrual method Accounts Receivable is an asset account. (Note I'm ignoring issues of deferred revenue :-) ).
I do think your definitions are sound.
Note: there are some U.S. tax rules about the first $X yearly capital purchases being immediately depreciable each year (though it's a relatively small amount).
You're complaining about them using words like "revenue" and "income" in the way they're meant to be used in accounting? That's...puzzling. Even surname (which you seem to dislike) is a pretty common word.
Not everything has to be immediately accessible; every field has terminology we have to be aware of when entering it - and that's not a bad thing.
Revenue and income mean different things. Revenue specifically means sales (sorta) and income is generally after cost of goods sold and other operating expenses. These matter, though. A company can have high revenue and low profit, or vice versa. If you want to see their net income, you can look at their financial statements on SEDAR's website, or on Google or Yahoo finance.
The article is definitely poorly worded, but the words themselves are not the problem.
It is weird to see Techcrunch faking the Wall Street Journal or Bloomberg with GAAP, "Street" and earnings per share expressions. Really not what I expect from TC... I can't help but think that good old days when TC used to explore new ideas and technologies are gone. Today almost all their writers just post update about a funding round, a developer conference or a new product feature. I wish I could get more in-depth articles about major topics like open AI, future telco/messaging networks, etc.
Maybe they're trying to edge out the Journal for this kind of news. If I recall Bloomberg and the Journal both have some kind of pay wall up, which at least has kept me from using them.
Microsoft's pricing model is off the rails. Ever look into Windows Server? Then the required CALS? It often costs twice the price of the hardware. Businesses will be moving to Linux/Cloud Apps like Google Docs over Office/Windows fast. There is little reason to stick with the MS ecosystem anymore.
What percentage of the user base uses that functionality? Especially considering that at the point you require the ability to "import millions of rows of data from multiple data sources into a single Excel workbook" you should probably be using a proper database and stop playing around.
> What percentage of the user base uses that functionality?
Tables or PowerPivot? I'd say a substantial share of the institutions purchasing Office Professional Plus are using at least one of the two in important processes, even if only a small number of users are directly aware of it.
> Especially considering that at the point you require the ability to "import millions of rows of data from multiple data sources into a single Excel workbook" you should probably be using a proper database and stop playing around.
PowerPivot is (built on, at least, the feature includes more than just the database) a proper column-oriented OLAP database.
96 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 28.7 ms ] threadI guess in the latter case, the name would be Streetly or Streetr or something equally dumb.
Just like how I cringe when I see terms like "the cloud" in Business Week or one of those magazines.
[1] https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=beat+the+Stree...
Not sure if this qualifies as an achievement. Too many questions would perhaps suggest that things aren't quite obvious.
Wish I had a Windows box to play around and see what Cortana looks like. A variant of Clippy?
> Wish I had a Windows box to play around and see what Cortana looks like. A variant of Clippy?
Your comment suggests that you don't know what Cortana is, so I'm not sure how you're coming to the conclusion that "Too many questions would perhaps suggest that things aren't quite obvious."
Cortana is a digital assistant, like Apple's Siri. Common queries could be things like "when's my next appointment," "what time is it in Tokyo," or "when's the next showing of Interstellar?" It doesn't reflect on Windows itself possibly being hard to use.
IME people can mistake thirst for hunger - one thinks one is very hungry but drinking some water (or other drink) and the feeling of hunger subsides, not scientific but there seems to be something in it. I wonder if there is some test for an optimum hydration level that a computer could do (visually?) or indeed if in a few decades we'll be monitored so closely in our actions in our homes (or at least those of us who are rich will) that Son-of-Siri will be telling us we should have a drink.
Probably Microsoft/Apple/Google/Buy&Large will be getting back-room deals to get their intelligent companions to order specific brands of drink for us and make recommendations when we're not quite thirsty that we need a drink "how about a Buy&Large cola"!!?
They are terrible imo. Cortana (and any other cloud "service") are the first things turned off on any windows install.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-19/microsoft-misses-ga...
What does this mean? Are Microsoft counting people who haven't upgraded as if they have upgraded?
It sounds like they are deferring some of the revenue from licenses sold with the intention of booking it over the life of the OS, as "free" updates are released.
GAAP rulea may dictate they book the revenue over the life of the OS to better match liabilities in the form of updates. MSFT want to book all the revenue now as an "economic reality".
It sounds like they're also claiming restructurings of their phone hardware division was a "one time charge" and removing those expenses, again, to better represent the "economic reality".
I think you might be right; the revenue should be deferred over the life of Windows 10, but their non-GAAP measure books it up front. Hence the top line beat.
Not a particularly heinous accounting maneuver.
As an observer, you need to make a judgement call on whether you agree with the GAAP numbers, the guidance numbers, or somewhere in between.
1. GAAP says that revenue from a software service subscription (e.g. cloud service) can only be counted as revenue once the service has been delivered, not at time of sale.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ea-to-ease-non-gaap-usage-a...
http://www.grayboxpdx.com/blog/post/revenue-recognition-for-...
2. Equity-based compensation is accounted for as a cost.
http://mercercapital.com/financialreportingblog/equity-based...
Persuasive evidence of an arrangement exists Delivery has occurred or services have been rendered The seller's price to the buyer is fixed or determinable Collectibility is reasonably assured.
Stock compensation doesn't make it not an expense. It is coming from somewhere. It is coming from the equity holders pockets therefore it is a real cost.
The basic definition is Assets=Liability+Equity.
So rewriting it E=A-L
If you you pay a person with cash: E-C=A-C-L
When you pay person with equity:
E-X where X is equity you are losing in both cases they are equivalent. So stock option are not free and need to be treated as an expense.
Microsoft obviously does not want to do this since it drops their earnings by a significant amount, but I'm sure their auditors gave them shit for it. Their auditors probably also made them book impairment charges on things they didn't feel were impaired.
Not "rules" but "guidelines". Or quite literally, "principles".
"... stock soars"
The thing is that GAAP vs Non-GAAP is pretty irrelevant unless they regularly change how they do it. If a company reports non-GAAP earnings every quarter with the same methodology, it's effectively the same as reporting GAAP. People on wall street aren't dumb. There is a reason the reaction was positive.
Food for thought, here are GAAP vs non-GAAP reportings for the S&P 500 companies: http://www.auditanalytics.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/1...
For the non-finance people, this is like using snake case in a camel case language or vice versa. Sure, it's an annoyance the first time you look at the project. As long as it's consistent between files, it's not really worth withdrawing from your "things I can bitch about at the dinner table" account.
btw, don't say " for the non-finance people " -> it's very arrogant and bankers are already hated as it is.
This is the easy over-simplification that makes for a convenient blame-game.
> Speculators don't care about a correct investment decision is about riding the trends
Speculators != Investors.
> If people are buying, it doesn't matter if you don't agree .. you have to buy as well it works as a hedge.
No. If other people are buying, you can sit there and do absolutely nothing.
> btw, don't say " for the non-finance people"
No. I'll go ahead and target my explanations to the exact people who may not understand the topic being discussed. If you feel like you're being looked down upon, that's your insecurity, not my problem.
You can see it's the same person with an alternate login. Social media is slowly becoming the biggest confirmation bias factory, facts became totally irrelevant in discussions.
- 1 YEAR AGO, as GAAP: Microsoft reported a $2000 millions in losses
- TODAY, as GAAP: Microsoft reported $3000 millions in profits
YET the story is spun negatively in terms of GAAP, and people will follow that negativity despite having the data literally in their faces!
In this case, what wall street takes into account is Microsoft progress in the cloud, how many physical and virtual widgets they are selling and cost's control as well as currency fluctuations, taxes, etc...
While I understand an investor report needs to be precise the articles about it needs to use terms people understand. Like "this is how much money came in the doors" -- aka. income. I believe the word "revenue" is used for what a layperson would call "income" and "income" is also used but for something else.
And then good luck figuring out how much profit they made. I searched and this article alone http://phys.org/news/2016-07-microsoft-profit-year-big-loss.... puts it in easy-to-understand way right in the very first sentence:
> Microsoft said Tuesday it posted a profit of $3.1 billion in the just-ended quarter
Is that painful to write or what? Because noone else did.
Edit: for example, one could write "Microsoft have sold software and services for $22.6B and made a profit of $3.1B". That's easy. Also, I realize it's not perfect (because they also sold hardware and got money from IP deals) but it's not my task to come up with easy-to-understand phrasing and it only needs to be done once. It's just an example of how to use words that non-accountant people can understand.
What's the FASB?
There are several companies/methodologies that significantly adjust public filings to reflect economic realities: [1] https://www.credit-suisse.com/sites/holt/en.html [2] http://finance.wharton.upenn.edu/~acmack/Chapter_12_app.pdf
The 10k's we would go over took a lot of analysis to understand financially and operationally if the company is in good shape based on the stated numbers.
Free cash flow is most commonly defined as operating cash flow minus capital expenditures
You would need to make adjustments to the cash flow if you wanted to account for the extra liabilities since that doesn't use cash in the current quarter.
My point is cash flow can be manipulated just like income statements. You really need to look at income statement, cash flow, and balance sheet to know what is going on.
Here's an alternate definition (and you'd adjust based on a given industry or company)
Start with Net income + expenses not using cash (such as depreciation and amortization) - revenues not providing cash (such as recognition of deferred revenues) - increase in working capital or + decrease in working capital - increase in required cash balances or + decrease in required cash balances + interest paid in cash (recall that all firms must disclose this number) - interest tax shield (the tax “savings” from financing charges due to the tax deductibility of interest) - long term capital investment (including, but not limited to capital expenditures or “CAPEX”) + cash from sales of assets (including sales of PPE)
= Free Cash Flows to the Unlevered Firm
You'd continue on with more calculations to get to free cash flows to common equity or whatever you're interested in.
GAAP - Generally Accepted Accounting Principles
So what then is non-GAAP?
But lack of standardization in these calculations, plus the potential for creative accounting, make it difficult to draw relevant comparisons among companies or draw meaningful conclusions from these statistics.[1]
Riiiiiiight.
It the article was from a financially oriented news organisation it'd make a bit more sense to use the terms of industry.
1. http://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Non-GAAP
Generally, "Non-GAAP" can mean either IFRS or Cash Basis Accounting
Basically:
GAAP - Generally Accepted Accounting Principles = the way large corporations in the US have to account for things (assets, liabilities, equity, earnings, cash flows, etc.) --> Accruals
IFRS - International Financial Reporting Standards = how European companies account for things --> Accruals
Cash Basis Accounting = the way small businesses usually account for things
Cash Basis Accounting vs. Accrual Accounting (GAAP/IFRS/etc.)
* Cash Basis --> expenses and revenues directly match cash flows, I buy a machine that lasts 5 years today and expense the whole purchase price today
* Accrual Accounting --> expenses are recorded when "incurred" and revenues when "earned", I buy a machine that lasts 5 years today and expense the purchase price over 5 years
Individual standards (IFRS/GAAP, etc.) define these soft terms: incurred, earned, assets, debt, equity, other income, etc.
I think it's easier to demonstrate on the revenue side: if I sell a customer something and give them 30 days to pay, under the cash method I don't record the sale until I actually receive the cash whereas under the accrual method I record the sale when I invoice the customer: in the cash basis Accounts Receivable is basically a non-booking account and under the accrual method Accounts Receivable is an asset account. (Note I'm ignoring issues of deferred revenue :-) ).
I do think your definitions are sound.
Note: there are some U.S. tax rules about the first $X yearly capital purchases being immediately depreciable each year (though it's a relatively small amount).
Not everything has to be immediately accessible; every field has terminology we have to be aware of when entering it - and that's not a bad thing.
The article is definitely poorly worded, but the words themselves are not the problem.
https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/526406718440218624
Last 12 months rev for G and M are $75 and $85.3 billion per Google finance.
edit: M's revenue had actually decreased $8 billion over the prior 12 months.
I honestly can't remember what the "good old days" of TC even looked like. MG Siegler writing fawning pieces about Apple? The latest Arrington drama?
I came for the comment section. When they integrated Facebook, I never went back.
Google '15 74B Microsoft '15 93B
I'd invest in a horseshoe manufacture that grows revenue 4.6B a year for the last 17 years.
[0]https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/product...
IIRC, LO/OOo have much poorer support for tables and table formulae than Excel, as well.
Tables or PowerPivot? I'd say a substantial share of the institutions purchasing Office Professional Plus are using at least one of the two in important processes, even if only a small number of users are directly aware of it.
> Especially considering that at the point you require the ability to "import millions of rows of data from multiple data sources into a single Excel workbook" you should probably be using a proper database and stop playing around.
PowerPivot is (built on, at least, the feature includes more than just the database) a proper column-oriented OLAP database.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12127823 and marked it off-topic.