Re: [office-comment] [office-formula] predraft 8 of 2007-12-28,section 6.9.6, function days360 comment

[Sheldon Britton <sab_orion@verizon.net>]

Not wishing to divert from the current subject line (and/but since we 
are on the topic of[office-comment] [office-formula]... I thought that 
it might be appropriate at this time to draw attention a particular 
question that was raised some time ago with regards to the absence of an 
Economic Rate of Return (ERR) Functionality within Lotus 1-2-3, 
OpenOffice Calc... Thus, as a point of reference here is an extract from 
a 1998 Lotus Development Corporation communication;

"Re: Concerning the issues with 1-2-3 that are talked about in the 
documentation you gave me, most of the issues are related to converting 
files between older and newer versions of product and converting 
documents between Lotus and Microsoft. Anytime a file is saved backwards 
or saved with an older file format than the format the file was created 
under, such as saving a 1-2-3 , 97 file for Windows 95 into a WK1 format 
for DOS, then naturally we are expected to loose certain features due to 
technology and features that are present now that were not present 8 - 
10 years ago. Similarly, if we try to convert a file from Lotus into 
Excel or Excel into Lotus, due to differences in the products not every 
feature will be converted perfectly with the file filters that are 
available. Both Lotus and Microsoft create similar spreadsheet programs; 
however, there are several differences in both programs and these 
differences will remain to distinguish the products apart. We do try to 
design conversion filters that will allow as much of the file formats as 
possible to be exchanged and converted without disrupting the actual 
file design and format.

In one of your letters you made mention of the @IRR and @ERR functions 
in the 1-2-3 product. By design the @IRR (notably "absent" in Open 
Office) will calculate the Internal Rate of Return; where the @ERR is 
used in conjunction with other formulas, posted was an "ERR" showing an 
error was received in the calculations. As far as I can see in the 
program I cannot find an @ERR function that will allow us to calculate 
an Economic Rate of Return"

 From the above, is anyone in a position to say if any of the current 
Spread Sheets (Lotus 1-2-3, Excel, Open Office Calc...) that are 
available on the market can successfully convert from Internal Rate of 
Return (IRR) to Economic Rate Of Return (ERR) values; also, whether or 
not there are ongoing activities to have the Economic Rate of Return 
functionality integrated into Lotus 1-2-3, Open Office Calc et cetera et 
cetera and whether this Functionality has been agreed by the 
International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO)

Thanks you.

Kindest regards,

Sheldon A. Britton

Roel wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I believe that the test case for the function 'days360' is wrong.
>
> The days360 function (as given in the test-case) should result in '159' 
> instead of '-162'.
>
> The current implementations of this function in
> - excel 2002 (xp)
> - excel 2003
> - excel 2007
> - openoffice.org 2.3.0
> - openoffice.org 2.3.1
> - kspread 1.6.3
> all give '159' as a result.
>
> The given result of '-162' is obtained when one uses the 'days'-function 
> instead of the 'days360' function.
>
>