Apologies for the derision in the title :-) Here's some breaking news from Stephen Shankland and Ina Fried:

``Microsoft has launched an effort to produce a version of Windows for high-performance computing, a move seen as a direct attack on a Linux stronghold.

``High-performance computing once required massive, expensive, exotic machines from companies such as Cray, but the field is being remade by the arrival of clusters of low-end machines. While the trend could be considered an opportunity for Microsoft, which has long been the leading operating-system company, Linux has actually become the favored software used on these clusters.

``Now Microsoft has begun its response, forming its High Performance Computing team and planning a new OS version called Windows Server HPC Edition. Kyril Faenov is director of the effort, and Microsoft is hiring new managers, programmers, testers and others.''

Full story at New.com:
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+creating+Windows+for+supercomputers/2100-7337-5219282.html