IBM and Scripps partner on pandemic virus research

Both are involved in Boinc projects....

... crunch for Pandemic@Home

or maybe the boinc userbase hasn't proven itself reliable enough for such a "mission critical" project.

surely a mission critical project needs all the processing power it can get, that's why world community grid now supports BOINC, because BOINC has way more users than their other platform does

also BOINC is used for mission critical things, LHC for example, ok, they havn't got the same time pressures as viral spread modeling, but BOINC can get thru a lot of work quickly (LHC has only had work for a few weeks, now it's out again, we've crunched thru it all), which is what those types of "mission critical" projects need

although i'm doubtful that we'll see such a project, i get the impression that a lot of places either don't know about boinc, or don't take it seriously, and view it at some sort of hobby

From reading the press release on the scripps website

http://www.scripps.edu/newsandviews/e_2006.../checkmate.html

"The objective of "Project Check-mate" is to develop the means to anticipate, manage, and contain infectious diseases."

and this

"This is a very exciting and timely collaboration between two of the finest institutions in our state."
—Governor Jeb Bush

I have a comment but i'll keep to myself and off this fine site.

Might that have something to do with a family called Bush and an election held a few years ago

I didn't want to bring politics/dictatorships into this site.

Maybe I should add a political forum under "Off Topic"?

Precisely, and when you have a bunch of users that throw tantrums about the way this is done or that is not done, and threaten to stop crunching unless their way is implemented, then the drawbacks start to outweigh the benefits.