I stand corrected, the Beta version did have 65,536 rows.
Excel 2007 will have "support for" 1 million rows and 16,000 columns.
I certainly won't be upgrading!
Let's have a guess how many Service Packs they release for it?
Two, Three?
I reckon Four at least, the file system is just not built to handle this kind of storage. They have improved the theme, the feel, the look, and a few add ons, but the basic file structure is the same.
Isn't it strange that M$ know themselves that the spreadsheet file structure is not suitable for large storage, and told me so on more than one occassion, by phone and email, recommended large amounts of data be kept in Access, then release 1 million rows with no changes to the actual file system, just feel-good stuff.
Welcome to Microsoft Online Crash Analysis
Anyway, I was wrong on that issue, 1 million it is.