So it looks like Microsoft just won the lottery, landing Dan Reed in his first position outside the world of academia. That’s quite a catch, and from the sounds of it Dr. Reed is pretty excited for the opportunities that lay ahead.

Supercomputer researcher joins Microsoft

Microsoft Research has landed a heavy hitter from the halls of academia, bringing in supercomputer expert Dan Reed to direct a new initiative in scalable and multicore computing. Reed is currently director of the Renaissance Computing Institute at the University of North Carolina and has a resume to die for. Microsoft will represent his first job out of academia. “There is a sea change in computing coming at the intersection of multicore and large data centers, and working on this is one of the most exciting things I can imagine doing,” Reed told the EETimes. “I will be working with Microsoft researchers and product developers, as well as industry partners and academics. It doesn’t get any cooler than this,” Reed wrote on his blog.

Before moving to UNC, Reed led the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the University of Illinois computer science department. He is one of the world’s leading experts on parallel computing and large-scale system design. But he’s more than that. As Microsoft points out, besides being a high-performance computing all-star, he is also a “leader in US information technology research policy,” an area in which Microsoft has more than passing interest. Think maybe Microsoft likes that combination?

Nice! Congratulations to you both!

The article continues for a few more paragraphs, but it’s even further down — in the comments section — where things really seem to get interesting,

GloP2
He should get all the resources he needs/wants and if he’s such an expert, that’s a good thing in my book. MS publishes most of its research results, unlike other leaders in the field (I’m looking at you G.).

You know, GloP2’s got a good point. In fact, I’m quite amazed just how open MSFT is with all of their research projects. It’s one thing to publish papers on your underlying technologies, quite another to release the source alongside those papers!

Of course I don’t want to come across in a way that suggests I believe Google is doing anything other than *WONDERFUL* things in the world of open source knowledge sharing (and isn’t knowledge sharing really what being open is all about?), but then again Microsoft did nearly the same thing four years ago when they made available the Windows CE source under a mixture of shared source licenses, and last year going the last mile by releasing the kernel source, allowing the ability to tinker while at the same time retaining the ability to generate a profit: An obvious and challenging problem in the world of OSS, and one that can not be scoffed at as irrelevant.

Of course one could argue: “Windows CE 6.0 isn’t truly free software!” and, of course, you would be correct. There are certainly restrictions with what you can do with the source, dependent upon which license you choose, but lets be honest: How many people on this planet w/o *DEEP* pockets are really going to be able to use Android for anything other than hobbyist style tinkering? And given the fact that you can do that same hobbyist-style tinkering with the Windows CE 6.0 source, isn’t the difference really about splitting hairs between the true meaning of “Free Software”?

Just a thought, but maybe it’s time we all start to recognize the fact that MSFT is a lot more open than most will give them credit for, and when it comes to sharing with the world the results of their research, let’s be *COMPLETELY* honest: MSFT is the hands down, undisputed winner.

Anyone care to provide evidence to the contrary?