“Microsoft is aiming to have its first cluster version of Windows ready in time for a supercomputing conference this fall.

Software Architect Marvin Theimer said on Thursday that the company hopes to have a beta, or test version, by this summer, with the final version of Windows Server 2003 Compute Cluster Edition ready by the SC2005 supercomputing conference in November.

The company has not announced final pricing for the operating system, but Theimer said the additional computers, or nodes, of a cluster will be priced at a discount.

“When you buy a cluster, the price per node in the cluster is going to be reduced” compared to regular Windows, Theimer said in a presentation at the Intel Developer Forum here. “We want to be competitive with something like Red Hat.” “

Full article: Windows for supercomputers likely out by fall