Microsoft feeds Excel to supercomputer - The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/18/sc09_microsoft_excel_hpc/)

"Microsoft will allow users to lash the future Excel 2010 to a Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 cluster (both programs are in beta now), turning an x64 cluster into an Excel workbook co-processor, radically speeding up the performance of macros running inside the workbooks."

"This may not sound like HPC, but it is if you are making money at it, which Microsoft very likely will. By Mendillo's reckoning, there are an estimated 500 million active Excel users worldwide and somewhere between 50 and 55 million quant workers among them who use spreadsheets to build models of all kinds and across all industries."

A Register article without any opinionated drivel or references to Paris Hilton? What is the world coming to?

At least the most ignorant of the user comments are mildly amusing.


Richard

I've become a daily Odds & Sods reader.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/odds/

Here's another interesting article --

Windows 7's dirty secrets revealed (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/18/windows_7_heart/)

"Microsoft needs small footprint versions of Windows, both for embedded use and for the GUI-free Server Core edition. The problem is that the operating system is full of internal dependencies, and as Russinovich admitted: "We don't really understand those dependencies".

Doh! Microsoft admits Windows is beyond human comprehension.

Eric

It doesn't sound good but Turing showed it was impossible to fully understand some very basic programs (ie. the Entscheidungsproblem or Halting Problem).

So "doesn't sound good but not surprise".
I wonder if anyone fully understands a Unix implementation, or even a modern CPU design?



Richard