Excel's predecessor was MSFT's
Multiplan, which was superior to Lotus 1-2-3 in many ways.
Our corporation foolishly standardized on Lotus, but I insisted that all the Technicians in our departments learn & use Multiplan. That helped them later, when Excel became dominant.
Really. Interesting. When Lotus was waning, the natural progression for me was to Excel. Excel will even read Lotus files (well it used to) plus the cell commands are the same. The transition was easy. Wonder if there was litigation.
I did the family budget in Lotus many years ago and needed to convert them. Easy, peasy.