Red Hat Not Seeing Microsoft, Ubuntu as Threats

Ian Price writes "Red Hat is shrugging off Microsoft's entry into the cluster computing space after Microsoft announced that it has completed the code for its Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 targeting high-performance computing. From the article: 'Scott Crenshaw, general manager of enterprise Linux platform at Red Hat, dismissed Microsoft's entry into cluster computing. "They're playing catch-up," he said. "Linux is often associated with high-performance computing, but Windows has never achieved that on a large scale."' Crenshaw also commented with respect to Ubuntu: 'Their user base is still small, so we're not seeing the impact of it [Ubuntu] so far.'"

Comments

Microsoft has been into clustering for years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Years and years and years.

They've had several clusters into the Top500 several times.

A couple examples are a NSCA self-made cluster of NT machines that reached rank 207 in June 2000 top500 list. It consisted of 256-processor production supercluster, which consists of 128 Hewlett-Packard machines with dual 550-MHz Intel Pentium III Xeon processors.

These early efforts were typified by statements like:
"Couldn't barely get the benchmark done before the entire cluster would go done"
"If one node failed the entire cluster would go down"

And stuff like that.

That's the first time NT posted a top500 standing. They had earlier efforts going back several years.

About every single top500 list since then had a Microsoft-based cluster somewere.. Until recently.

Now Linux, which started gaining ground about the same time that Microsoft started with clustering research, now dominates the top500 list.

Good luck on that one, MS. I also like how their P.R. stuff always makes it sound like Microsoft just started getting into clustering.

Why Linux is Da Bomb!

[DJ_Perl]

I agree with most of your comment. Here's where I take a different view --
Given that I'm not Microsoft, or Red Hat, I'd rather be a Red Hat stockholder than a Microsoft stockholder.
Also, I'd rather be monetizing services for rapidly spreading open-source software, than trying to get developing nations to pay for my proprietary software.
I urge you to focus on the direction and rate of the change, rather than the magnitude of the status quo.
There are too many people in the world not using computers yet. Eventually, most will. But if everyone paid Windows licensing fees, many developing nations would have to hand over most of their GNP to Microsoft. That's absurd!
In my humble opinion, it makes sense for India, China and several other developing countries to throw their collective might behind internationalized open-source software running on commodity hardware. When there are literally a million eyeballs scouring OSS for bugs, we'll see phenomenal changes in this playing field!
If intellectual property were enriched Uranium, intellectual property law would be the mechanism in an atomic bomb that prevents critical mass, and an economic boom.