Gear

Microsoft Takes Aim at Super Computer Market

Currently the preserve of scientific researchers who prefer UNIX and Linux machines, Microsoft is pitching cluster and parallel computing to small and medium sized businesses, with out of the box prices starting from $50,000. Microsoft has a tiny 2.3% of this market right now, but Kyril Faenov of Microsoft thinks this will reach 60%, although he didn't specify how long it might take, "We're aspiring to the same share as we have in other markets.

Halsoft-1Microsoft wants a chunk of the $10 billion high-performance computing (HPC) market. Currently the preserve of scientific researchers who prefer UNIX and Linux machines, Microsoft is pitching cluster and parallel computing to small and medium sized businesses, with out of the box prices starting from $50,000.

Microsoft has a tiny 2.3% of this market right now, but Kyril Faenov of Microsoft thinks this will reach 60%, although he didn't specify how long it might take, "We're aspiring to the same share as we have in other markets. That's a comfortable target for us."

David Turek of IBM echoed his former IBM president Thomas J. Watson's (alleged) famous words "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers" when he told Reuters

"It's not like the iPod market. You're not talking about millions and millions of users. It's still measured in the tens of thousands".

Maybe. But if super clusters get cheap, who wouldn't want to use it for something useful, like Halo?

Microsoft touts supercomputing for the masses [Reuters]