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There were some attempts in the early 2000s at "SETI@Home but commercial" type systems based on distributing work packets and scavenging unused desktop CPU time
by _delirium 12y ago
There were some attempts in the early 2000s at "SETI@Home but commercial" type systems based on distributing work packets and scavenging unused desktop CPU time. DataSynapse was one (they later became a more standard cloud-computing company, and are now part of TIBCO): http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,102871,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,102871,00.asp. However, I don't believe any such systems have become successful.
A more recent variant is renting out VMs, a more cloud-computing take on the idea rather than the utility-computing one: https://secure.slicify.com/ https://secure.slicify.com/. But it remains to be seen whether something like this will catch on either.