Microsoft Targets HPC Market

In a recent speech, Bill Gates stressed the need for Microsoft to target the affordable high-performance computing (HPC) market. However, we think that its too late for Microsoft.
Now allow us to dwell on our reasons.

1. The HPC market, though affordable, it hard to penetrate, with traditional giants like IBM and Hitachi at the front line. To put in it in layman terms, Microsoft does not know the lay of the lands in the neck of the woods.

2. HPC is also Linux domain.

The question is whether anybody in the space wants Microsoft there.
- Charles King, PundIT Research

3. The traditional tools of HPC are also Linux based. E.g. LAM/MPI, MPICH, etc.
Linux, being opensource, offers developers and users to tweak the programs to their specific needs. (Better than an idiot-proof Microsoft product)

4. Its costly for a Microsoft. In terms of R & D and manpower, Microsoft is unable to match the thousands of opensource programmers out there. Microsoft's Windows NT has not been readily accepted in the HPC environment.

5. We admit, its rather true that HPC is making great inroads into our lives, esp in Universities where research into all fields of science has never been so heavy before. The supercomputers of today may just be the computer of tomorrow. 50 years down the road, we have been able to shrink a basketball court size computer network into a small mainframe. (Think the The Manhattan Project).