Microsoft Buys Interactive Supercomputing – Microsoft Pathways

With the purchase, high performance computing and parallel computing are now integrated into the Microsoft family of products. The site already shows the new name “Microsoft Pathways”. Additional information can be read at the blog relative to Windows Server 2008.

I have mentioned high powered computing several times on the blog with the combination of Server 2008 HPC and the new division, things will continue to accelerate. Back last year during the crash of Wall Street, many found it odd and it was reported in the newspapers that perhaps Microsoft picked an odd time to market their new high performance products after the crash, well not so, they needed to rebuild in a hurry and needed the data shop to do it.

Parallel computing allows insurance and “re-insurance” business models to be re-created “daily” for better decision making processes. We hear a lot today about the “re-insurance” business today with the current effects on Wall Street with questions as to whether the companies are in fact able to provide the services needed, AIG for an example. With parallel computing several processes are ran at one time and analyzed quickly.

Just as a note, health insurance relies on this technology as well, thus my post of a couple days ago, we need this with laws and regulations past, as if the insurance industry is creating new business models in less than 24 hours, how does this affect the laws we pass, give this some real thought when it comes to exploring algorithmic centric laws for the future, and here I am focusing on healthcare insurance provisions. Like it or not, we are in the world of “high frequency healthcare” using the “crystal balls” of algorithms to predict. Casualty losses are much different than humans though as they are objects and not human lives, and there’s no science yet that has been able to accomplish full predictability on human lives.

Would Someone Explain Data Aggregation and “High Frequency Healthcare” to the US Congress

One of the videos on the server site shows business intelligence at work with insurance companies, and the focus is on risk management. In the sample video, this is casualty and life insurance with remarks relative to the hurricane and the recovery efforts that swept Louisiana a few years ago. With high powered computing the video states, awareness and the ability to prepare could have been improved.

Is it time for a US Department of Algorithms?

In summary, high powered computing is here to stay and the more we know about how it functions, the better we can prepare and be knowledgeable on the accounting and business intelligence processes that are taking place. Microsoft, IBM, and more have high performance capabilities available at many levels. Again, relative to health insurance intelligence, we need some checks and balances in place to ensure we don’t see the same issues with greed crossing the line, and perhaps once more we should really think about profit in healthcare and how we go about it as a country, the technology is there to create solutions and save lives, but the credentialing is the part in question, do we base healthcare on projecting outcomes and profit only, or can we be wise enough to seek and find the balance. The software and systems will continue to grow, but how it gets used and implemented is the big question yet to be answered. BD

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) confirmed yesterday on its Windows Server Division Weblog that the company has purchased the technology assets of Interactive Supercomuting (ISC), a Waltham, MA, developer of parallel computing software. Financial details of the acquisition weren’t revealed. The blog says that ISC’s CEO, Bill Blake, and his firm’s technical experts are moving into Microsoft’s New England Research & Development Center in Cambridge, MA. Xconomy last reported on the activities of ISC when the firm raised a second round of financing from Ascent Venture Partners, Fletcher Spaght Ventures, Flagship Ventures, Rock Maple Ventures, and Common Angels in October 2007. The firm had raised a total of $18 million from investors.