Fortran - Re: Introducing the Intel(R) Fortran Compiler, Standard and Professional

Author

Re: Introducing the Intel(R) Fortran Compiler, Standard and Professional

Brooks Moses

2006-04-07, 7:02 pm

David Frank wrote:
> "Steve Lionel" <Steve.Lionel@REMOVEintelME.com> wrote in message
> news:elca32pg67i1rb2h72ei3nuq1int2rqk8g@
4ax.com...
>
> Whats the big deal, Steve?
> Apple announced this w

they are providing direct support for Windows O.S.
> so my CVF CD would presumably install/run on one these "new Apples"
> along with the same IFC compiler for Windows CD you sell to Dell customers,
> right?

That would only run on the Mac if you buy a copy of Windows and install
it. And the compiled results would only run for people who also bought
copies of Windows and installed them.

Given how much flak some people give Intel about requiring Visual Studio
to run their compilers with an IDE on Windows, I can't imagine that "you
have to buy a copy of Windows _and_ a copy of Visual Studio to run our
compiler on a Mac, and your customers will have to buy copies of Windows
too" would go over very well, eh?

- Brooks

--
The "bmoses-nospam" address is valid; no unmunging needed.

Steve Lionel

2006-04-07, 7:02 pm

Richard E Maine wrote:

> I'm very pleased with the Intel announcement (though it is not
> unexpected, as they had announced their intent on this some time ago).

I keep thinking back to my CVF days when customers would be begging us
to release a compiler for Mac OS. I never dreamed then that I'd
eventually be making an announcement like this.

Oh, the Intel Fortran Compiler for Mac OS X works with Apple's Xcode
IDE. Nothing else to buy. There's even a "Professional Edition" bundle
that includes the Intel Math Kernel Library and Integrated Performance
Primitives.

The feedback we've gotten during the public beta has been overwhelmingly
positive.

Steve

Dan Nagle

2006-04-07, 10:01 pm

Steve Lionel wrote:

<snip>

> Oh, the Intel Fortran Compiler for Mac OS X works with Apple's Xcode
> IDE. Nothing else to buy. There's even a "Professional Edition" bundle
> that includes the Intel Math Kernel Library and Integrated Performance
> Primitives.

<snip>

What can you say about pricing and availability?

--
Cheers!

Dan Nagle
Purple Sage Computing Solutions, Inc.

Steve Lionel

2006-04-08, 8:02 am

Dan Nagle wrote:

>
> <snip>
>
> What can you say about pricing and availability?

Available now, pricing is at
http://www.intel.com/cd/software/pr...lers/267476.htm
Note that there's "promotional pricing" for the Professional Edition
that expires December 31, 2006. Free 30-day evaluation copies are also
available. There is also academic, student and classroom pricing.

A correction - the Professional Edition includes MKL but not IPP. My error.

Steve

Steve Lionel

2006-04-08, 7:01 pm

beliavsky@aol.com wrote:

> I wish Intel would offer compiler bundles across operating systems, so
> that the cost of buying the Intel Fortran compiler on two or three
> platforms (Windows, Mac/Intel, Linux) would be a bit less than buying
> them separately. That would encourage Intel Fortran users on one
> platform to try others.

Urgh - as if our list of product SKUs wasn't long enough already...
It's an interesting idea - does any other commercial vendor do this?
I'll pass it along to our business folks - no clue what they'll make of it.

Steve

tholen@antispam.ham

2006-04-08, 7:01 pm

Steve Lionel writes:

> It's an interesting idea - does any other commercial vendor do this?

I don't know about present tense, but if you use past tense, then I'll
note that the Watcom compiler was cross platform. Of course, back then
the Mac didn't run on Intel processors, but Windows, OS/2, and some DOS
extenders were supported.

Steve Lionel

2006-04-08, 10:02 pm

Gordon Sande wrote:

> The Language Reference manual for Windows and for MaxOsX sure look
> a lot alike. Is its development being costed out twice?

The front ends are the same. As they were for DVF/CVF, DEC Fortran for
OpenVMS Alpha and DEC Fortran for Tru64 UNIX, all separately priced
products. Back ends were almost the same too. So what? The cost of
software bears little if any relationship to the cost of development or
manufacture. If one followed your logic, software makers should let you
have as many copies of the software as you want for the same price,
since it doesn't cost them any more to "build" it.

Back in the late 1970s, a government official came to visit the DEC
software offices in Tewksbury, MA, and wanted to know what we did there
(and if it involved heavy lifting.) One engineer held up a blank floppy
(the 8" kind) and said, "this costs about a dollar.". He inserted it in
a drive and copied VAX-11 FORTRAN-IV-PLUS to it. He then held up the
same floppy and said, "We sell this for $10,000." (And people paid it
willingly.)

Software pricing is purely a business model, based on the perceived
value of the product, the size of the marketplace and the competition.

The question the business folk would want answered is - will multi-OS
pricing bring in more total revenue? They'd want to know what
incremental sales to expect and would it be offset by a loss in revenue
of the separate products? I don't pretend to know the answer (I'm a
software engineer, not an MBA.)

How many can we put you down for?

Steve

Rich Townsend

2006-04-08, 10:02 pm

Steve Lionel wrote:
> beliavsky@aol.com wrote:
>
>
>
>
> Urgh - as if our list of product SKUs wasn't long enough already...
> It's an interesting idea - does any other commercial vendor do this?
> I'll pass it along to our business folks - no clue what they'll make of it.
>

I just bought Tecplot for Linux, and negotiated a concurrent license to
run it under Windows too. Very useful -- would be great if you guys did it.

cheers,

Rich

Gary L. Scott

2006-04-09, 4:01 am

Steve Lionel wrote:
> Gordon Sande wrote:
>
>
>
>
> The front ends are the same. As they were for DVF/CVF, DEC Fortran for
> OpenVMS Alpha and DEC Fortran for Tru64 UNIX, all separately priced
> products. Back ends were almost the same too. So what? The cost of
> software bears little if any relationship to the cost of development or
> manufacture. If one followed your logic, software makers should let you
> have as many copies of the software as you want for the same price,
> since it doesn't cost them any more to "build" it.
>
> Back in the late 1970s, a government official came to visit the DEC
> software offices in Tewksbury, MA, and wanted to know what we did there
> (and if it involved heavy lifting.) One engineer held up a blank floppy
> (the 8" kind) and said, "this costs about a dollar.". He inserted it in
> a drive and copied VAX-11 FORTRAN-IV-PLUS to it. He then held up the
> same floppy and said, "We sell this for $10,000." (And people paid it
> willingly.)

Seems slightly short sighted. You can know the size of the current
market and price such that it assumes that size market (milking it so to
speak). You can also include/provide clearly superior value (e.g.
including a complete IDE) and price aggressively and actually foment an
increase in the size of the market.

>
> Software pricing is purely a business model, based on the perceived
> value of the product, the size of the marketplace and the competition.
>
> The question the business folk would want answered is - will multi-OS
> pricing bring in more total revenue? They'd want to know what
> incremental sales to expect and would it be offset by a loss in revenue
> of the separate products? I don't pretend to know the answer (I'm a
> software engineer, not an MBA.)
>
> How many can we put you down for?
>
> Steve

--

Gary Scott
mailto:garyscott@ev1.net

Fortran Library: http://www.fortranlib.com

Support the Original G95 Project: http://www.g95.org
-OR-
Support the GNU GFortran Project: http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/index.html

Why are there two? God only knows.

If you want to do the impossible, don't hire an expert because he knows
it can't be done.

-- Henry Ford

Gary L. Scott

2006-04-09, 10:02 pm

beliavsky@aol.com wrote:
> Steve Lionel wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>
>
> Of course Intel will try to maximize profits, but the issue should not
> be defined too narrowly. Is not part of the reason Intel develops
> compilers to make Intel hardware more attractive? For me, there has not
> been reason to buy a new PC for a while. My next PC will probably be an
> Intel-based Mac, partly because of Boot Camp, but also because Intel
> Fortran and g95 will be available for the Mac OS.
>
What is it that's special about boot camp? There's been multi-boot
options for x86 machines forever. Is it just the official support from
Apple or does it do something truly unique?

--

Gary Scott
mailto:garyscott@ev1.net

Fortran Library: http://www.fortranlib.com

Support the Original G95 Project: http://www.g95.org
-OR-
Support the GNU GFortran Project: http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/index.html

Why are there two? God only knows.

If you want to do the impossible, don't hire an expert because he knows
it can't be done.

-- Henry Ford

Rich Townsend

2006-04-09, 10:02 pm

Gary L. Scott wrote:
> beliavsky@aol.com wrote:
>
> What is it that's special about boot camp? There's been multi-boot
> options for x86 machines forever. Is it just the official support from
> Apple or does it do something truly unique?
>

AIUI, it is the provision of Windows drivers for the specific hardware
platform that is an Apple/Intel machine. Basically, they provide not
only the opportunity to dual boot, but all of the driver support. All
the end user needs to supply is a copy of Windows itself.

cheers,

Rich

Brooks Moses

2006-04-09, 10:02 pm

Gary L. Scott wrote:
> What is it that's special about boot camp? There's been multi-boot
> options for x86 machines forever. Is it just the official support from
> Apple or does it do something truly unique?

I was reading an article about this recently, which unfortunately I've
lost the link to. There are apparently two current forms of BIOS for
x86 machines; one of them (EFI) is fairly new, and one of them is the
old standby. Windows currently only uses the old standby (and will
continue to do so in Vista, even), and thus any motherboard marketed at
the "PC" end of things will at least have a compatibility mode for that
so that it can boot Windows. Mac OS/X uses EFI, and thus Mac hardware
just provides EFI and doesn't have a compatibility mode out of the box,
and thus Windows won't boot on it without help.

Boot Camp apparently provides a software workaround for that.

- Brooks

--
The "bmoses-nospam" address is valid; no unmunging needed.

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