Giant Microsoft Surface billboard shows Excel counting error

So you know Microsoft Excel? The spreadsheet software millions around the world use to set budgets, build cost estimates and loads of other things involving numbers? Well, it can’t add.

At least, that’s the unintentional message the Redmond-based software giant sent out with a billboard advertising the latest version of the Microsoft Surface.

The bugger up, first noticed by the folks at Apple Insider, appears on a billboard in San Francisco and depicts a Surface, with an Excel spreadsheet open.

The spreadsheet, which shows holiday calculations on an Excel spreadsheet alongside a pie chart, adds just seven numbers together… and gets them wrong.

If your eyes are battling to see where the mistake is, here’s a table showing the expenses as they appear on the billboard.

Those of you who are quick at mental arithmetic will have already seen the error. As for the rest of you, if you’re too lazy to whip your smartphone calculator out, the actual total should be US$9 500.

Now the sharp-eyed vultures at The Register, reckon this could be down an actual Excel glitch.

For our money though, it’s more likely that the designer involved in putting together the billboard wasn’t all that numerically astute. Although, if that is the case, we have to assume the same for everyone who approved the ad in the first place.