Microsoft buys desktop parallel-computing software maker ISC
Summary: Microsoft has purchased the assets of Interactive Supercomputing (ISC), a desktop parallel-computing vendor, according to a blog post on the Windows Server Division Weblog. The move fits in with Microsoft's continued efforts to build up its high-performance server capabilities so as to better take on Linux in that market.
Microsoft has purchased the assets of Interactive Supercomputing (ISC), a desktop parallel-computing vendor, according to a blog post on the Windows Server Division Weblog.
The move fits in with Microsoft's continued efforts to build up its high-performance server capabilities so as to better take on Linux in that market. It also fits with Microsoft's larger Server and Tools and research projects to make parallel programming easier.
Microsoft has a wide variety of ongoing projects in the parallel/distributed computing space, from its Axum concurrent-computing language, to the Parallel FX extenions to the .Net Framework. Earlier this year, Microsoft formed a new eXtreme Computing Group, headed by supercomputing expert Dan Reed, that is focused on exascale computing.
According to the Windows Server post, dated September 21, from Kyril Faenov General Manager, High Performance & Parallel Computing Technologies:
"ISC’s products and technology enable faster prototyping, iteration, and deployment of large-scale parallel solutions, which is well aligned with our vision of making high performance computing and parallel computing easier, both on the desktop and in the cluster."
Faenov said in the post that Microsoft recently began planning to integrate ISC technologies into future versions of unnamed Microsoft products and that Microsoft will provide more details "over the coming months." In the short term, Microsoft will be providing support for ISC's current Star_P customers, he said.
The CEO of ISC, Bill Blake, will be bringing the ISC team to work at Microsoft's New England Research & Development Center in Cambridge, MA.
PEHub reported yesterday that Microsoft had purchased ISC, but Microsoft declined to confirm that report.
PEHub noted that ISC's P-Star is “technical computing software that enables users to code computing problems on their desktops using familiar mathematical software such as MATLAB and Python, and run them instantly and interactively on parallel high-performance computers (HPCs).”
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Talkback
the regulators should stop this deal
Sounds great! (NT)
Hoping this brings massively multi-cpu/gpu support
Massively parallel is not just about handling multiple cpus/gpus
Massive parallel computing is about handling the multiple cpus/gpus, but equally important, it's also about parallel processes running for an application and sometimes for more than one application at a time.
And, a single running process can also be programmed, with the new "parallel" capabilities, to handle more than one "request" at a time; sort of having a queue of requests in a single process. So a process may be programmed to handle many requests on its own before a second process is fired up (by the OS) on the cpu to handle the "excess" requests that the first process could not handle.
And, a single cpu can have many copies of a process (running program) handling the many requests, and likewise, another cpu can have many more copies of the same process running and handling many of the same requests "concurrently".
Thus, a single "computer" with multiple "cpus" might, at any one time, have all of its cpus busy with multiple copies of a process spread through the cpus, and each process capable of handling many requests at the same time; thus, a multi-cpu computer with an OS capable of handling many cpus and the many copies of the processes within each cpu, might be at any one time, handling thousands or hundreds of thousands of requests, "concurrently". With PCs nowadays having 5 or 8 or more cpus, the number of running processes "simultaneously" could run into the millions, and the number of "parallel" requests being processed at any one time could run into the many millions.
RE: Microsoft buys desktop parallel-computing software maker ISC
With this new acquisition, they will adopt FreBSD, build an new Windows totally different from the present Windows understructure, run older versions of Windows in a parallel environment and thus rid itself of massive bloat problems and virii problems. Thus, they will obtain a much more streamlinded system.
The new UNIX based OS will be really optimized for 64 bits operations. Legacy programs will be able to run in a parallel virtual machine in the new Windows system just like they are able to run presently in Mac OS X under parallel software.
Microsoft has known since the introduction of NextStep by Steve Jobs that they have to eventually transfer to a UNIX based operating system and they will do it in the next year or so.
The only reason they have stuck with the present system was to hold on to its monopoly.
They will now be forced to compete, something they are not good at.
Hopefully, users will be better served.
Good luck.
One more detail
The new FreeBSD system will not open legacy software. Strictly software written for it (unless a program like Rosetta is included with the new operating system... but after a few years, when enough people have switched to the new OS, logically, this should be dropped). The only solution then will be a parallel virtual machine.
By the way, this new UNIX operating system could allow Microsoft to go on its own as a PC builder.
That's to be seen.
Recent articles have shown that Microsoft privileges the Apple modelin certain of its products: build the whole environment - hardware and software.
Here again, they will have to really innovate and compete.
Will they finally get this in their DNA? To do so, they might have to get rid of the salesman they have as CEO. If they do, computing will be a better experience for everybody.
Again, good luck.
RE: Microsoft buys desktop parallel-computing software maker ISC
their other research-oriented OSes and take up something
as out-moded as FreeBSD?
RE: Microsoft buys desktop parallel-computing software maker ISC