International Business Machines Corp. and Google Inc. will each pony up around $20+ million to work with six universities to provide 'cloud computing' - computers in remote data centers running in parallel, thus increasing their processing power.
IBM and Google will provide some 400 computers now and later expand to 4,000 at a number of locations.
The computers will be accessible from six universities -
1. University of Washington in Seattle
2. Carnegie Mellon University
3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
4. Stanford University
5. University of California at Berkeley
6. University of Maryland.
IBM will provide its expertise in running data centers and managing computer security.
Google will provide "complementary expertise in Web computing and massively scaled clusters."
Another motivator says a market-researcher - "the companies also are united by a rivalry with Microsoft, and 'they'd like to influence the future of online business before Microsoft extends its influence.'"
Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard are also working on their own approaches to cloud computing.
The winners, of course, will be the universities.
Google or Microsoft?
Can I have another choice?
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