True Story: One time in my mid-twenties, I was sitting in a meeting with members of the marketing team, and was the only engineer in the room. We were planning a strategy that impacted the entire Office suite.
One of the marketers suggested that we focus solely on the needs of Word/Outlook/PowerPoint, and not worry about Excel/Access, because “not many people care about those apps, anyway.”
…to which I deadpanned, in my most biting sarcastic tone, “Yeah, totally, only those people who care about numbers.”
In hindsight, that was not my finest moment. In those days, the marketing org was a bit of a shark tank. Highly competitive and cliquish, where reputations could turn on a dime. A dressing-down from the prod-dev org such as the one I delivered, in front of your marketing peers, was not something you could easily recover from. There was much laughter in the room, by the many, at the expense of the one.
That marketer wasn’t around much longer.
Like I said, I was in my twenties, and while I believe I am sharper today, I definitely had sharper edges back then. I hope I would handle that situation more diplomatically today, but I can’t really be certain. I mean, the nastiness of my reply was exceeded only by the ridiculousness of the original statement 
OK, that’s a long but hopefully interesting/amusing preamble to the following statement
PowerPivot is an international topic
Or… “Hey look! People worldwide are interested in numbers!”
As always, new MS products get the most initial “noise” in the US, but if you look at a map of recent visitors to this site and the FAQ, you’d never guess that:
I just thought that was neat. And if I snapped this picture early in the morning before the US wakes up, it would skew even more international. My free logging service only keeps the most recent 500 hits.
Anyway, I thought you might want to see that.
…and dear ex-MS marketer: if you happen to be out there today, reading this blog about numbers, please accept my apologies
I can see myself!
It looks like the product is slow to gain acceptance in Kazakhstan…not a single dot there…
…perhaps your former marketing person has been assigned to promote Excel and PowerPivot in that region?
“…perhaps your former marketing person has been assigned to promote Excel and PowerPivot in that region?”
ROTFL!
Not to worry. Borat is on the case. There’s an upcoming webinar:
“Analytical Learnings of Data for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”
Bill, I’m with Colin. That was hilarious