Cray has launched an affordable supercomputer which starts at $25,000 and it is available to be purchased at Amazon.com.

The model of the supercomputer is CX1 and it is a blade server that can take up to 8 blades according to the report at guardian.co.uk. These blades could have one or two Intel Xeon processors. Those who want more power could link three CX1s together.

Richard Dracott of Intel said, “Cray’s CX1 system will bring many HPC capabilities to the office that were previously confined to the datacenter, enabling more users to employ supercomputing to help them solve some of their most difficult computational problems.”

Source: Guardian.co.uk

According to the data that were collected by The NDP Group, Mac notebooks costs over twice as much as a computer with a Windows operating system.

The disparity between these two types of computers widened only in the last few months according to eWeek. It notes that, “If Apple is going to continue its market share gains, or simply maintain that 8.5 percent U.S. share, prices must go down and configurations bulk up,” eWeek notes. “The math is simply undeniable.”

The article at Electronista notes that the average Windows notebook is $700 today but an Apple system is above $1,500.

Source: Electronista

According to a report that was posted at Information Week, most of the business customers of HP downgrade their computers from Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system to Windows XP.

Chris Flores, who is the official blogger of Microsoft Vista, said that over 180 million Vista licenses were sold. Information Week notes that this news raises questions about the sales claims of the Vista operating system since businesses cannot buy just a Windows XP system without buying a license for Windows Vista.

Dell and other computer makers are also shipping these “downgraded” systems.

Windows XP was officially retired by Microsoft last month.

Source: Information Week

Techrepublic.com has posted an article about a survey that was conducted by KACE, a company which makes systems management appliances.

KACE surveyed 1,100 IT managers and they found that sixty percent of them have no plans to use Windows Vista. Forty-two percent said that they would consider Linux and Apple as an alternative OS (operating system). Ninety-two percent of them answered that their plans did not change when Microsoft released the first service pack for Vista.

The author of the article, Larry Dignan, notes that KACE made the survey in order to pitch its KBox appliance which is designed to manage multiple OSs.

Source: Tech Republic

Free technical support to small businesses that will buy new PCs from now until the next three months with a Windows Vista operating system are now available from Microsoft. Plus, the company is offering help to downgrade the businesses’ operating system to Windows XP.

“We have such confidence in the state of Windows Vista that we’re going to all U.S.-based small businesses and we’re offering free support, one-on-one coaching and assistance via phone to help them go through and make the transition to Windows Vista,” said Brad Brooks of Microsoft.

Source: COMPUTERWORLD

Microsoft has opened an opportunity for consumers to run their Office Suite and Windows Live OncCare security package for an annual subscription cost of $69.99. The program of this rental business is called Equipt and it’s available exclusively at Circuit City beginning in approximately two weeks.

“Consumers expressed frustration at having to spend time and effort installing different types of software, keeping current on new versions, and getting their computers set up. We’re just making it really convenient and painless for consumers to get up and running in a few mouse-clicks,” says Bryson Gordon of Microsoft.

Source: InformationWeek

Microsoft’s Live Search will come pre-installed on computers that are made by HP starting on January of next year. Also, the homepage of the internet explorer web browser is set to Live.com according to an article that was posted today at Channel Register.

A web wonk named Kevin Johnson said, “This agreement with HP is a strategic indicator of our increased focus on securing broad-scale distribution for Live Search.”

This type of deal has been made before. In 2006, Google and Dell had a deal worth approximately 1 billion dollars over three years.

Source: Channel Register

PC World has posted an article that corporate users of OS X 10.5, Leopard, has a higher level of satisfaction using the operating system than Windws Vista users. This is based on the study that was conducted by ChangeWave Research.

7% of the respondents said that their company would purchase Apple computers in the next 90 days. “Apple held at 7%, the same as November,” said Paul Carton who is the director of research.

He also said that, “Apple continues to set the standard for corporate customer satisfaction.” The research also found that fewer companies will purchase Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Toshiba notebooks.

Source: PC World

A website called AppScout has posted an article about a problem on Microsoft’s webs site for Windows Vista Ultimate Extras called UltimatePC. The problem is that when users connect to the Ziff-Davis VPN software, they will be redirected to the Microsoft home page instead of the UltimatePC site.

The article tell the readers what the site is all about such as that the site contains PC specifications and a price point. The site also offer discounts for third-party products. There are only a few features that are exclusive in Windows Vista Ultimate and the author of the article does not recommend people to upgrade to this version based on its cost.

Source: AppScout

Microsoft will reduce the price of their Windows Vista operating systems when SP1 is officially released.

The full version of Ultimate will be priced at $319 which is $80 cheaper than the current price. The Home Premium upgrade version is now only $129.

According to the article at PC World, Microsoft says that the result of their research showed that a reduced cost of Vista would get the attention of more users, specifically, those who are not geeks and early adopters.

The article also noted that this news does not affect the price of today’s computers with Vista in it.

Source: PC World