It looks like Microsoft is trying to combine Excel with high end computing for trading purposes:
Microsoft Showcases Modeling and Trading Platform of the Future
Linking Excel Services with Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, Microsoft demonstrates how to turn Excel into a strategic trading platform built on high-performance computing.
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Microsoft Showcases Excel Services and Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 at Securities Industry Conference – June 20, 2006
Microsoft Resources:
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Microsoft Financial Services Web site
NEW YORK — June 20, 2006 — At the largest single IT event targeting the securities industry, Microsoft Corp. today demonstrated what may soon become the standard modeling and trading platform of the future: Microsoft® Office Excel® and Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server built upon a Windows® Compute Cluster Server 2003 high-performance computing cluster.
The solution, which is being demonstrated on an HP Cluster Platform 4000 at the HP and Microsoft Break Room at this week’s SIA Technology Management Conference & Exhibit in New York, utilizes the ubiquity of Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheets in today’s financial services firms as a front-end interface, combined with the scalability and availability of Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 software as a back-end analytic engine.
“Securities firms have long been concerned about spreadsheet creep, particularly in today’s compliance-oriented environment,” said Louise Westerlind, analyst in the securities and investments group at Celent LLC. “Microsoft and its industry partners are in a prime position to solve this problem by combining an Excel front end with a high-performance-computing back end to help brokers unleash the full power of algorithmic trading.”
Time to poop or get off the pot, IMO
