Also, I think a lot of it will be to do with the much reduced choice of projects we currently have here. The majority of the machines crunching for team 'IBM', will be set and forget (i.e., be part of the standard laptop set-up process), and thus, the people who are using them, probably won't know much (if anything at all) about other DC projects - and hence, won't have gone looking for pastures new.

I'm sure that when this new project launches, a lot of people will return to WCG so as to achieve their goals/partake in a cancer related project.

I think that we will not remain with no project at all.

IBM really needs to be much less shy about its support for WCG - and probably a lot of its other charitable work as well, but especially this since it plays such a central role.

Let's be real. There is, when it works well, a symbiotic relationship between corporations and charities. Certainly there are times when the latter pimp themselves out to the former and the former abuse their relationship with the latter, but I don't think that's the norm. Those are just the few instances you hear about because they're the ones that sell papers and ads.

The fact of the matter is that IBM was instrumental in pioneering distributed computing, even going back to the days of United Devices IIRC, and sure, maybe there was some self-interest involved but I don't think anyone could seriously argue that's been the dominate motivation.

But for a corporation to provide free money and resources, they need to get something out it besides a tax deduction. Tax loopholes are the least of their worries. And what the charity can give them is a positive public perception, which is invaluable.

Personally I think IBM has been far too low-key about WCG and hopefully this signals a change in that approach - one which will benefit both entities.

I didn't say put their logo on it did I? Why does everything have to be one extreme or the other? I suspect IBM probably realizes that there is this tendency on the part of the populace generally and that it is a big part of the reason it didn't want to 'contaminate' WCG by association.

But d'ems da breaks dude. You take the good with the bad. What do you think WCG could have done with a budget 10x or 50x whatever it gets now? How many people recognize the IBM brand but have absolutely no idea of what distributed computing is let alone who we are.

This is one balancing act where things I think would clearly come down on the side of WCG.

Maybe in the early days when the benefits of distributed computed might have been reasonably debated you could have said the money would have been better spent on super computers. But now, what are supercomputers? They're made from the same chips in the machines we use, in any meaningful sense anyway.

So the real question is, do you believe in what we're doing? Do you believe it's the best approach to solving the world's problems, or at least the ones that require serious number crunching. Because if you do, then somebody needs to get serious about it - somebody with the clout and gravitas and history to make it happen.