“By bringing together some of the world’s leading scientists from a wide range of disciplines, the Harvard Initiative in Innovative Computing (IIC) is fostering something that was lacking — their direct, peer-to-peer collaboration. In doing so, the center aims to further the development of leading edge scientific computing as it is applied to some of science’s longstanding and emerging problems,” Andrew K. Burger reports for MacNewsWorld.
“Such endeavors typically rely on Unix servers and desktop workstations to meet their IT needs. Nearly all the IIC’s researchers have opted for Apple Macs as their desktops of choice, however. Systems engineers are also opting for Macs and OS X rather than Linux-based PCs as the Mac OS X Unix interface enables them to interact with other Unix hardware and software,” Burger reports.
“The strength of Apple’s 3-D imaging and visualization tools are a big plus for IIC researchers. The fortuitous meeting of an astronomer studying star formation and a computer scientist working on developing the 3-D Slicer — a cutting edge open source medical imaging and visualization software — led to their collaboration and the creation of the Astronomical Medicine Project. Initial results have given researchers new perspectives on star formation while work continues to produce multi-disciplinary solutions that can be gainfully used by astronomers, atmospheric scientists and geophysicists, as well as medical researchers,” Burger reports.
“The shrinking of the price gap between Apple’s computers and those of competitors and Apple’s policy of not selling stripped down versions of its computers is raising Apple’s profile in the enterprise sector, JupiterResearch analyst Michael Gartenberg. told MacNewsWorld,” Burger reports.
Full article here.
…the meeting of the minds. I just hope it does the same for the enterprise market.
This is terrific. Apple is partnering with the really smart guys in computing, not the heel dragging ( knuckle dragging?) bozos. The scientific community is also the one with the most to gain from taking advantage of the parallelism potential of multi core CPUs, so that Apple will be in the thick of those developments.
“The shrinking of the price gap between Apple’s computers and those of competitors” … what? Apple hasn’t cut its pricing. The competition hasn’t changed its pricing. Perhaps this “shrinking” is in the perception of the potential purchasers who have noticed that the price favors Apple, when comparing like systems. And, for servers, the price of the OS goes a long way towards equalizing the prices.
silverwarloc, IT is being forced to accept “a few” Macs in-house and those few will lead to a better understanding of the cost structures – PC vs Apple. It may well take a year or two for significant progress to be made, but inroads will be made. Don’t expect Apple to become “dominant” in the next few years, but “a force to be reckoned with” is not out of the question.
Dave
“Don’t expect Apple to become “dominant” in the next few years, but “a force to be reckoned with” is not out of the question.”
Uhh … that refers to “in the Enterprise space”.
Dave
“Uhh … that refers to ‘in the Enterprise space’.”
Not the Enterprise in space?!?!?
As a scientist, Macs are also favoured here. Doing complex DNA sequence alignments (comparing 50,000 genes) took a PC two weeks of cpu tome to do. It took our linux machine one week and an Apple duo-core 4 days. It took the new quad-core 2 days.
That opened some PC people’s eyes here and a few have bought Macs now as a result.
Macs rock.
“Macs rock.”
That’s gneiss.
Apple usage in the sciences has been exploding. I work at CERN, and have seen usage go from tiny to gigantic here in the last 5 years.
Me: So you’re saying Macs are really for discerning scientists?
“But Dells are such a bargin…..” Said the PC using IT guy.
Nice to see.
Other news, two of my wifes friends just switched to MacBooks. Never used Macs before. Absolutely love them. Can’t believe how easy to use.
Ahh – so puny are we!
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Yep. There are compelling reasons to use a linux laptop in my field, but more and more are seeing the benefits of an OS X machine – and you can run linux in a VM, rather than having to live with it all day long.
Damn, Ampar, your humor is making me think this morning… Good stuff!
Perceptions are long in building and changing. Apple did allow itself to become perceived as expensive – primarily by don’t selling junk systems – and did little to combat that image. While that has not been the case for many years conscious awareness has an inertia, and it takes time for perceptions to change, regardless of the reality. The broader populace is only now becoming aware of we staunch Mac users have known for a long time: Macs offer good value, if not cheap pricing, and value trumps a few bucks saved up front.
“by don’t selling junk systems” ????
That was supposed to be “NOT selling junk systems.”
Most of my friends are floored to find out that the Macbooks start at $1099.
It takes time for peoples’ mistaken impressions to change, but they slowly are.
Thanks, madgunde. I do what I can.
Ampar…good one(s)
@DLMeyer
1989 Lets see Macintosh II CI – $6700
2007 i-Mac 20″ – $1200
1991 Quadra 900 -$7200
2007 MacPro – $2300
This price drop in Apple hardware has to do to the fact that it has standardized using common computational standards. So, yes Apple has DRAMATICALLY lowered it’s price points.
I have an MS in Physics and have worked on stuff like orbit software for the Space Shuttle. I love the fact that I can run things like my numerical computation code I’ve written in C, and using Terminal and X11, pipe output to XWindow GNUplot just as if I was on a Unix box.
Also speaking of Macs and math, I am currently giving some advice and tutelage to an artist friend who is taking a “math for artists” kind of class, and am reminded what a wonderful learning tool Grapher is (comes in the Utilities folder)! I have made up a bunch of annotated function plots to explain various concepts quite easily, and can save them as jpegs or PDFs easily. Why doesn’t Apple promote this more alongside its iLife apps? The value that this program adds to the system for students learning symbolic math and calculus is amazing, and it is almost hidden from most users! Now maybe it’s a little more esoteric than iPhoto, but there ought to at least be a paragraph in the brochures or a sign in the Apple stores about this really wonderful tool!
Thanks, Buster. I think iPhone 2.0 has a built-in DNA sequence analysis widget.
If you put a plaster model of a double helix in front of your house, is that a lawn genome?
Rheinhard: Your friend might enjoy Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter.
Ampar…am still waiting for iPhone one here in Canada. Many people do not understand that DNA stands for…the National Dyslexia Association. These are the people who stay awake at night wondering if there really is a Dog.
Some people are just too dogmatic for their own doog.
Sorry. That should have been godmatic.