Microsoft makes moves on supercomputing

MICROSOFT PLUGGED IN HPC Server 2008 yesterday and suggested there were a few financial institutions out there that could do with a bit of help counting.

Built on the same framework as Windows Server 2008, HPC Server ’08 is an updated version of the Vole’s first forage into the supercomputing market.

The firm is playing serious catch-up when it comes to supercomputing with most machines running Linux OSes, or Sun/IBM operating systems.

Something the Vole hopes will play to its advantage is that many companies already us its Office software, which would make for easy compatibility with HPC 2008.

Mighty-Soft is also hoping that by integrating HPC application development with Visual Studio 2008 – for parallel programming environment support – more users will be swayed.

Last week, the Redmond giant teamed up with supercomputer expert Cray to unveil a desktop system for only $25,000.

Microsoft reckons HPC Server 2008 also has good reporting functions for checking how well the computer is performing various tasks.

Now, as long as the banks stop going bust, it might just get some customers. µ