Is MacBook suitable for accountants using Excel and data analysis?

VikingOSX wrote:

Especially true if the Windows version of Excel is currently using any specialized, Windows-only third-party add-ons or custom Visual Basic code.

Yep.

The whole point of Office (and as portrayed by the classic Microsoft logo!) is to tie all the apps and services together, building dependencies and interdependencies and integration, within the Office apps, as well as the rest of the Microsoft environment and Azure hosting, and (as you mention) third-party apps and services.

These integration and interdependencies almost inherently also make porting apps and processes out of the Microsoft environment more difficult.

This porting away from Windows being the query here, obviously.

There are absolutely fine and capable ways to do data analysis on macOS, too. Commonly with Python, R, TensorFlow, pick-your-LLM, etc., and Excel can absolutely be tied into your databases using ODBC and such.

Now for accountants not tied deeply into Microsoft, sure, the data will all port, and Excel or another spreadsheet on Mac will work.

This is not a move from Intel or AMD x86-64 to Mac, this is centrally a move from Windows to macOS.

Microsoft Excel on macOS on Apple silicon (Arm AArch64) will work fine.

But if you live in Office and Office apps and Office services and Azure services and the rest of the Microsoft ecosystem, seriously consider Microsoft Windows 11 for Microsoft apps for support, and get commercial support directly from Microsoft.

Using Microsoft Windows for Microsoft apps reduces the number of fingers that can be finger-pointed elsewhere.

Especially true if the Windows version of Excel is currently using any specialized, Windows-only third-party add-ons or custom Visual Basic code.