Thanks. We are really focused on this as well. :)

Here's a blog post we wrote comparing us to Amazon's EC2 for HPC apps: http://pluraprocessing.wordpress.com/2008/10/23/comparing-pl.... Our numbers should be very compelling for certain types of applications compared to the cost of building your own clusters or using an EC2-type service.

There are definitely certain applications where this form of grid or cloud computing (I hate to use such a popular buzzword) will enable apps that weren't possible before. Previous attempts at grid computing for HPC depended more on philanthropy instead of having a scalable business model that allowed the addition of 100s and 1000s of nodes at a time.

1) I think this is a really smart idea, and hope it works well for you. It seems like a win for everybody, as long as the end user knows what's happening.

2) You maybe should look at the phrase on savings in your paper:

"if your application is suitable for Plura, you can save 7X on your compute costs".

I take this to mean you save 7 times your compute costs, where it should be six sevenths of the cost. There's a difference, and your customers will understand it. Sorry if I've just misunderstood.