Microsoft Files For 3 Parallel Processing Patents

theodp writes "Microsoft may have been a Johnny-come-lately when it comes to parallel programming, but that's not stopping the software giant from trying to patent it. This week, the USPTO revealed that Microsoft has three additional parallel-processing patents pending — 1. Partitioning and Repartitioning for Data Parallel Operations, 2. Data Parallel Searching, and 3. Data Parallel Production and Consumption. Informing the USPTO that 'Software programs have been written to run sequentially since the beginning days of software development,' Microsoft adds there's been a '[recent] shift away from sequential execution toward parallel execution.' Before they grant the patents, let's hope the USPTO gets a second opinion on the novelty of Microsoft's parallel-processing patent claims."

Comments

Re:pffff

[dbIII]

Try programming in linux for one day and then throw parallel processing into it.

It can be as simple as throwing in "rsh" and sending the task to another system - that's a parallel processing method still in use that predates linux. I suggest the above poster uses google to find out what parallel processing is and look at the many different ways of dividing up the tasks, kicking of the processes and getting some sort of results at the end.
Microsoft are the new kids on the block and their licencing alone makes them a very poor choice for clustering so I haven't heard of any production software that will actually run on the platform. There has to be something because it's been a couple of years now. Does anyone have any good examples?