At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco this morning, Intel announced a new family of software development tools for Microsoft Visual Studio to help programmers get the most out of multicore processors. Dubbed Intel Parallel Studio, this new product family includes four new applications, each designed for a specific part of the development process:

• Intel Parallel Advisor (design)
• Intel Parallel Composer (code)
• Intel Parallel Inspector (debug)
• Intel Parallel Amplifier (tune)

According to James Reinders, director of software development products at Intel, most of these applications will be available in beta form by the end of 2008 or early 2009, with a final release scheduled for mid-2009. Final pricing will also be announced in early 2009. Developers can sign up for the beta program by visiting www.intel.com/go/parallel. According to the program website, beta program applicants must currently be using Windows XP or Vista, use the C/C++ programming languages, and be running Microsoft Visual Studio 2005/2008 (excluding Express).

According to Reinders, current trends in microprocessor design involve moving beyond 2- and 4-core processors to what Intel calls "manycore" processors, future chip designs that could have 8, 16, and even more processor cores.

In an online FAQ [PDF] that answers questions about the new product family, Intel suggests that developers who will benefit most from these applications are those "seeking to take advantage of multicore, but concerned about supporting software on multiple generations of microprocessors and several recent releases of Microsoft Windows." Intel and AMD are both heading down the manycore processor path, and products like these will help developers learn to get the most out of the immense processing power that future processors--like Intel's new Larrabee processor--can provide.

For more information on Intel Parallel Studio products, visit www.intel.com/go/parallel.