Spy der Mann's Journal: Why Microsoft really dropped old formats from Excel 2007

We all had seen it coming. Many file formats that once were supported by Microsoft Excel, are now being abandoned. Now, some people say these were for security reasons due to virus e-mails (shouldn't user education have better results?). But I find another, much more powerful reason for that.

According to Microsoft Technet:

A number of the previous file formats are seldom, if ever, used. Support for these formats is removed from Office Excel 2007. Users can no longer open or save workbooks based on the following file formats after a migration to Office Excel 2007:

• WK1 (1-2-3)
• WK4 (1-2-3)
• WJ3 (1-2-3 Japanese) (.wj3)
• WKS (1-2-3)
• WK3 (1-2-3)
• WK1, FMT (1-2-3)
• WJ2 (1-2-3 Japanese) (.wj2)
• WJ3, FJ3 (1-2-3 Japanese) (.wj3)
• DBF 2 (dBASE II)
• WQ1 (Quattro Pro/DOS)
• WK3, FM3 (1-2-3)
• Microsoft Excel Chart (.xlc)
• WK1, ALL(1-2-3)
• WJ1 (1-2-3 Japanese) (.wj1)
• WKS (Works Japanese) (.wks)

And according to the Microsoft blogs, The following formats CANNOT be used for saving files:

• Microsoft Excel 2.1 Worksheet
• Microsoft Excel 2.1 Macro
• Microsoft Excel 3.0 Worksheet
• Microsoft Excel 3.0 Macro
• Microsoft Excel 4.0 Worksheet
• Microsoft Excel 4.0 Macro
• Microsoft Excel 97- Excel 2003 & 5.0/95 Workbook
• Microsoft Excel 4.0 Workbook
• DBF 3 (dBASE III)
• DBF 4 (dBASE IV)

I've worked with people who due to technical limitations (i.e. legacy applications), need to read and write to old formats. Like DBF files (Foxpro, anyone?) and WK1 files.

Anyone remember how Excel became the #1 spreadsheet? Because it supported interaction with all those formats. And now that Excel is in every office, they simply drop them off. The result is that all programmers who once used worked with those formats, will have to work extra hours.

Now let's assume that in your office you use one of those legacy applications. You have three choices:

1. Buy some legacy format converters (because you can't use Excel to do the conversions anymore). Good luck finding them.
2. Write your own legacy-format-to-xls converter. Good luck with that one
3. Purchase database products that export to /Import from Excel format. Guess who wins here.

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, anyone?