Microsoft made its fortune selling the equivalent of Fords, not Ferraris, but today it's wading into the rarefied world of supercomputing with a new version of Windows for managing massively powerful computing systems.
Chairman Bill Gates is introducing a test version of a new product, Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, at the SC\05, a supercomputing conference held this year in Seattle.
Among the 8,600 people at the weeklong event are vendors and scientists who use computers to solve enormously complicated problems, including analyzing proteins, predicting the effects of nuclear explosions and modeling what might happen if an asteroid exploded near Earth.
At this conference, in the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, Gates is also expected to announce support for university research in the field and describe experiences of customers testing its new software, including Rosetta Inpharmatics in Seattle.
Microsoft sees a growing market at research-intensive companies for clustered systems, created by linking together a series of standard PC components to multiply their processing power.
Clusters now account for about 10 percent of all server sales, but Microsoft expects them to grow dramatically as prices continue to fall, the systems become simpler to manage and new applications are developed.
"What we're seeing is, as the price comes down and advanced applications trickle down from academia, they're really being picked up by enterprise [businesses]," said Kyril Faenov, Microsoft director of high-performance computing.
But Microsoft is wading into a largely academic field where perhaps 80 percent of the systems use freely shared, open-source software. The company rarely reveals the inner workings of its software to customers.
It's also an open question whether the Microsoft-based systems are true supercomputers. Traditionally, the term has referred to cost-is-no-object, room-filling systems used mostly by governments and universities.
With costs falling, Microsoft envisions high-powered clusters proliferating in the business world and appearing in every department or work group in biotechnology, energy, financial services and other industries.
Microsoft engineers built demonstration systems for under $4,000 using hardware bought from local computer stores, according to Craig Mundie, a senior vice president who started Microsoft's push into high-performance computing two years ago.
Microsoft is also entering the field to prepare for the more powerful computers expected to be widely available to consumers in 10 to 15 years.
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Chairman Bill Gates is introducing a test version of a new product, Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, at the SC\05, a supercomputing conference held this year in Seattle.
Among the 8,600 people at the weeklong event are vendors and scientists who use computers to solve enormously complicated problems, including analyzing proteins, predicting the effects of nuclear explosions and modeling what might happen if an asteroid exploded near Earth.
At this conference, in the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, Gates is also expected to announce support for university research in the field and describe experiences of customers testing its new software, including Rosetta Inpharmatics in Seattle.
Microsoft sees a growing market at research-intensive companies for clustered systems, created by linking together a series of standard PC components to multiply their processing power.
Clusters now account for about 10 percent of all server sales, but Microsoft expects them to grow dramatically as prices continue to fall, the systems become simpler to manage and new applications are developed.
"What we're seeing is, as the price comes down and advanced applications trickle down from academia, they're really being picked up by enterprise [businesses]," said Kyril Faenov, Microsoft director of high-performance computing.
But Microsoft is wading into a largely academic field where perhaps 80 percent of the systems use freely shared, open-source software. The company rarely reveals the inner workings of its software to customers.
It's also an open question whether the Microsoft-based systems are true supercomputers. Traditionally, the term has referred to cost-is-no-object, room-filling systems used mostly by governments and universities.
With costs falling, Microsoft envisions high-powered clusters proliferating in the business world and appearing in every department or work group in biotechnology, energy, financial services and other industries.
Microsoft engineers built demonstration systems for under $4,000 using hardware bought from local computer stores, according to Craig Mundie, a senior vice president who started Microsoft's push into high-performance computing two years ago.
Microsoft is also entering the field to prepare for the more powerful computers expected to be widely available to consumers in 10 to 15 years.
Source