Xconomy: Microsoft Builds Open-Source Tool for Biologists Drowning in Data, an On-Ramp for Customers Who Pay
Summary
Microsoft Builds Open-Source Tool for Biologists Drowning in Data, an ‘On-Ramp’ for Customers Who Pay Xconomy Seattle — The boss at the world’s leading maker of high-speed gene sequencing instruments, Illumina CEO Jay Flatley, pulled no punches a couple weeks ago when asked about bioinformatics.This is the field in which people make software to help biologists store, analyze, and visualize vast piles of genomic data that are accumulating every day.The world’s biggest software maker (NASDAQ: MSFT) has been working for years to find an angle into biological research labs, without much to show for it.So I was curious to hear from Simon Mercer, the director of health and well-being at Microsoft Research, a few weeks ago on a visit to his office in Redmond, WA.“I’m a biology refugee in a computer science company.” Mercer, who has a doctorate in zoology, worked as director of software engineering at Ann Arbor, MI-based Gene Codes before moving to Microsoft Research in 2005.
