Microsoft Corporation India Pvt. Ltd. today announced the availability of the Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 - its flagship product for High Performance Computing (HPC). The Windows Compute Cluster Server (CCS) has been designed specifically to run applications solving complex computations and is aimed at taking supercomputing to the mainstream by making it more accessible, affordable and easy to use. The company has identified engineering, oil & gas, academia and public sector as focus verticals, and is working with ISVs to develop applications that can run on or interoperate with Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003. These ISVs include Abaqus Inc., Ansys Inc, ESI Group, Fluent, MSC Software Corp, Schlumberger Information Systems and The Portland Group. Microsoft is also partnering with a range of OEM partners including AMD, Dell, HP, IBM and Intel.

“High-performance computing technology holds great potential for expanding the opportunities within engineering, medical research, exploration and other critical human endeavors that until now have been too expensive and too difficult for many people to use effectively,” said Mr. Kyril Faenov, General Manager, High Performance Computing, Microsoft Corporation. “Microsoft is making HPC technology more mainstream by bringing the cost advantages, ease-of-use and partner ecosystem of the Windows Server platform to departments and divisions in commercial industry and the public sector. We want HPC technology to become a pervasive resource - something that’s as easy to locate and use as printers are today. Microsoft is excited about the promise this holds for our customers and partners in the months and years ahead,” he further added.

Globally, Microsoft has seen Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 used by early-adopter customers for oil and gas reservoir simulation and seismic processing, by life sciences customers for simulations of enzyme catalysis and protein folding, and by manufacturing customers for vehicle design and safety improvements. Some of Microsoft’s early adopter customers include: aQuantive, Inc., BAE Systems (UK), CASPUR (Italy), Cornell University’s Computational Biology Service Unit, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Northrop Grumman Corp., Petrobras (Brazil), Queen’s University Belfast (UK), Tokyo Institute of Technology’s Global Scientific Information and Computing Center, University of Cincinnati’s Genome Research Institute, and Virginia Tech’s Computational Bioinformatics and Bioimaging Laboratory. Over the next few years Microsoft will work closely with its partners and customers to bring HPC to the mainstream; by taking it beyond traditional supercomputing centers, to departments and divisions in commercial organizations as well as the public sector.

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