There’s an amusing post at The Apple Blog that gleefully describes all the ways Office 2011 for the Mac trounces Apple’s iWork suite. Here’s an example:

“[The Office demo] shows off Sparklines, in-cell mini-graphs of visual data straight from Excel 2010 for Windows, as well as new PivotTable report designs and layouts. Office-wide, users will now have the ability to do “basic photo editing,” with options like color correction, as well as more advanced ones like background removal, but that’s the small stuff.”

I feel certain that the vast majority of users will never use Sparklines or PivotTable report designs. Not once.

This reminds me of the guy who buys a trail-rated Hummer capable of withstanding three feet of water, sub-zero temperatures and insanely sharp inclines, but all he ever does is drive it to the grocery store. A finely-tuned Vespa would do the exact same job at a fraction of the cost.

I haven’t owned an Office product since 2001 and haven’t suffered because of it for an instant.

[Via Minimal Mac]