Microsoft Acquisition Adds to Parallel Computing Focus

Microsoft has purchased assets in a company that specializes in parallel computing, a function used mainly in supercomputing that Microsoft aims to develop for a broader audience, the company said Tuesday.

Microsoft has acquired the technology assets of Interactive Supercomputing (ISC), a company that specializes in desktop tools for parallel computing, Microsoft said in a blog post. Parallel computing refers to the execution of a task on multiple process cores and threads simultaneously.

Microsoft will explain in coming months how it plans to integrate the company's technologies into its own products, it said. The CEO and other staff from ISC will join Microsoft, it said. It did not give the price of the purchase, which was announced by its server division.

Microsoft said ISC will no longer sell its main product, a software platform that helps users work with parallel setups for complex computations on array or matrix-based data. But Microsoft will provide support for current users until the end of next year or until their contracts expire, it said.

Microsoft has said it and partners are working to develop software architecture and applications to correspond with parallel computing hardware.