Microsoft goes gold on Compute Cluster Server 2003

If you're the type to resort to the "imagine a Beowulf cluster of those" cliche, you may want to avert your eyes now. But those who've already hacked their MSN TV and Xbox to cluster compute might want to know that it looks like Microsoft's gone gold on their Compute Cluster Server 2003 high-performance computing OS, only about 8 months late. They're only asking a mere $496 per quad-core node, which should be a relatively easy sell considering the competition is open, free, and doesn't use a date that's three years past in the title of their product. Oh, wait. By the way, sysadmins, have we mentioned recently that we have a distributed computing team? Because we do!