Jim:
Yes Data connection works really well using ActualTech ODBC driver. Plus I myself replaced python long time in-place of using VBA. I find VBA in
excel horrible.
Yes there are few distinct issues for MAC
1) Lack of customization short cut keys. Which could be huge lacking for somebody who is daily crushing financial model. So lacking alt+ shortcut keys could be an issue, but those issues
can be easily solved by creating your own short cut key and getting familiar with it
2) Macros? I don't see any use of it? I don't know why people are complaining about this issue
3) Power BI tools- Yes they are useful but there are better BI tools than excel but are not free
4) Pivot chart? Don't see any value
5) VBA editors and SQL editor mode is not at all useful. This I find Microsoft need to be fixed.
I myself find using Actual Tech plus using back-end python using xlwings works well for me.
Regarding pivot chart and true data analysis is a joke. Let me tell you. I work as a research analyst in quantitative division in the oil and gas division at a hedge fund. Mostly our group use mainly R or Matlab for really analysis
to provide investment recommendation. Right now I am being trained using Matlab.
I myself is in the business side and not purely super quantitative. So basically, I use excel about 50 percent of my time rest I use Bloomberg terminal to do rest of my data analysis work there. Most of the quantitative people
here don't even use Excel. They mostly use R or Matlab to do their complex data analysis and there are so much features like predictive analysis. Rest of the time they use Bloomberg Terminal.
Excel as an application is baby compared to R or Matlab for real data analysis or statitical analysis tool. In my opinion, Excel as a tool was never geared for big data or analytics. It was mainly geared for business majors for
roles like financial analyst, accountant, sales or business analyst to use basic to intermediate data analysis tools. I have never seen professionals who are into heavy data intensive roles like financial engineering, data scientist or economist using Excel
that much.
"All I want Microsoft to fix two or three issues for MAC for Excel in the future. 1) The SQL editor mode 2) VBA editor mode 3) Pivot chart would be helpful if they can add. Excel for MAC has come a long way in my opinion.Hopefully
those three issues could be fixed in the upcoming year in future software upgrades.
I find Excel for Mac enough to do my work!