Commenting on the launch, Pallavi Kathuria, Director, Server Business Group, Microsoft India said, "The success achieved by Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 in the last few years is a strong testament of Microsoft's value proposition in the High Performance Computing market. We are confident that as the successor, Windows HPC Server 2008 will help us further build on this momentum by offering an easy to deploy, cost effective and scalable HPC solution for firms to leverage their existing resources and scale from workstation to cluster -- all in a familiar Windows environment".

With this launch, Microsoft has strengthened its commitment to driving the adoption of High Performance Computing beyond traditional HPC workloads into mainstream scenarios. "While the contribution of HPC solutions has been acknowledged worldwide in complex computational scenarios like engineering, science and medical research projects -- today, this technology has indeed evolved beyond its conventional realms of utility to include a wide range of mainstream modern day technologies like storage, networking and data management", said Kathuria.

Microsoft brings the value of an integrated HPC solution and a productive development environment to customers for whom high-performance computing has been out of reach in the past. By focusing on productivity for users, developers and administrators, Microsoft is positioned to take high-performance computing mainstream. "The launch of Windows HPC Server 2008 is just another step in our vision to drive HPC mainstream" added Kathuria.

In India specifically, apart from the academic space, Microsoft has experienced a great rise in the adoption curve of its HPC solutions in commercial scenarios like Manufacturing, BFSI and Media & Entertainment, and has been working with leading names in these areas in India.