Microsoft Software's Inconsistency

(7/22/2014) Anyone who has taught Microsoft's Excel in class feels the same pain that I feel. Excel has so many different versions over the years, and the Windows version and Mac version also have different interfaces. Although I know Excel is very important to business students and I would really want to teach, but, as a teacher, I don't really know how to teaching in class. Why? Students have so many different versions of Excel on their computers. As Mac becomes more popular among college students, teaching Excel without a lab (in a uniform OS and Excel version) is mission impossible.

Here is an example that I just found today. I want to find the command that can help me to convert a "text" to a "number" in Excel. When I search online, this is the official instruction from Microsoft's website. Are the software developers in Microsoft so blind that they don't see the problem that we are experiencing everyday?

Below is copied and pasted from this page. The major problem is in "Method 3" below. Yes, we know there are many different ways of converting a "text" to a "number." But different versions of Excel should be consistent. I am technology savvy enough to find answers on my own when Excel's new version CHANGES the command again. But those inexperience students CANNOT. In a classroom that has 4 or 5 different versions of Excel among students, tell me, how am I going to teach students?

Wake up! Microsoft, you sleeping lion.