“The macro language subset of Visual Basic has been the bread and butter architecture for those tasked with building advanced formatting in Microsoft’s signature Excel and Word suites.”

http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2008/01/14/office_mac_08_vba/

They still need some walls, some gaps, uncertainty. Licensing issues aside…

(see http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx)

Interestingly enough, Microsoft gives away the VBA specs if you send an email at officeff@microsoft.com

As seen here, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/840817

“Microsoft Office Binary File Formats

Microsoft makes its .doc, .xls, .xlsb, and .ppt binary file format specifications available under a royalty-free covenant not to sue to anyone who wishes to implement all or part of these specifications in their products. Implementation includes the ability to use the specification documentation for analysis and forensic reference purposes. Microsoft Office Drawing File Format for 2007 and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) File Format for 2007 are also available under this program.”

So one might expect why is VBA absent…