"Then I discovered Solver and all the stuff I had done before after months of programming and sweat was there at my fingertips. The packages seemed to go way beyond my wildest dreams. And all the other little extra bits were there as well at the click of a button - non-negative and integer coefficients, constraints, and some other bits I have yet to use. And the thing just works! So now in my daily work I might propose a model for the change of the dry matter or the color of firmness of kiwifruit over time and use Solver to fit it to a large data set. The models typically involve 10 to 20 parameters many of which are the same for all sets of fruit but some are set-specific. For example the time of reaching maturity may vary from orchard to orchard of course so that one may need to have a different value for each orchard. But with the tools of Excel available that is easy. So do I use Solver? Absolutely! Do I like it? I Love it! Could I do my job without it? No way! Indirectly the New Zealand kiwifruit industry has benefited immensely form Solver. So have !”