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Apple/Genentech BLAST Boosts Performance

Posted by pudge on from the dna-sequencing-for-dummies dept.

chobee tells us that Apple and Genentech have released an implementation of BLAST, a popular bioinformatics tool, for G4s running Mac OS X. The blastn tool of Apple/Genentech BLAST, used for finding similarities between nucleotide sequences, has been optimized to deliver up to five times the performance of the standard implementation, using the power of the Velocity Engine on the G4. Source code and binaries are available.

3 of 21 comments (clear)

  1. This is Apple courting other markets by D_Fresh · · Score: 4, Interesting
    While the armchair CEOs are screaming that Apple should port OS X to Intel/attack the enterprise server market/target business desktops, the company is actually doing that in a much slower, roundabout fashion. Instead of trying to bust into a market they have no foothold in, they are slowly but steadily courting the research market with apps like BLAST and ads trumpeting how fast OS X runs Mathematica.

    This is smart business.

    Even if Apple doesn't have grand designs to take over the enterprise server market, they're definitely going to gain mindshare in the grad student/corporate researcher community with tactics like this. And corporate research can mean big money, especially if a genetics lab decides to purchase a few hundred dual-GHz boxen and set them up as a Beow.... er, cluster.

    If this happened, suddenly other institutions would sit up and perhaps take notice of a) the versatility of OS X, b) the ease of use of OS X, and c) the TCO advantage Macs have. I think this is very canny marketing by Apple, working on markets where they already had their foot in the door and trying to open that door a bit more. There's no way OS X Server (given appropriate hardware to run on) would displace Linux/Sun/MS in any Enterprise overnight - but with a few years of incubation and hardening in a research environment, it could have the technological and mindshare boost it needs to attempt a takeover.

    --

    Was that out loud?
    1. Re:This is Apple courting other markets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Rome wasn't built in a day and we all need to remember that when we consider Apple building marketshare and mindshare.

      During the 80's Apple made it a point to be as anti-corporate as possible. Remember the "Lemmings" and "1984" commercials? At that point, they were so reliant on the Education market they could afford to thumb their noses at the corporate market. However the tables have now turned and Windows is moving into the education market at a fast pace. Apple needs to not only reclaim portions of the education merket, but get new users from the scientific and corporate communities to build their marketshare.

      I am known for being an avid ABMer and after 3+ years of preaching to others about the superiority of the Mac, I have finally convinced 2 people in recent weeks to purchase Apple systems. :-) I guess all my MS bashing has begun paying off.

  2. Inside the (infinite) loop by adso · · Score: 3, Interesting
    It should be noted that Genentech CEO Arthur Levinson is on the Apple Board of Directors.

    -adso