ACADEMIA

Intel Corporation and Red Flag Software Co., Ltd, announced that Red Flag is the first company to use the Intel C++ Compiler 8.0 for Linux to compile a commercial version of its Linux operating system. Red Flag used Intel's tools to optimize its Red Flag Server 4.1 series products. Red Flag will include 60-day evaluation copies of the Intel Compiler in its distribution to enable customers to use the tool to optimize their own applications. "Red Flag has taken a leadership position in driving performance on Linux," said Jonathan Khazam, general manager of Intel's Software Products Division. "Intel collaborated with Red Flag to optimize its kernel and provide customers with a foundation for high- performance applications that take full advantage of Intel's latest processor features. Software developers who want to realize their own performance gains can use Intel Compilers and other Intel software development tools to get similar results." Software developers, including such operating system vendors as Red Flag, use compilers to translate a programming language into the machine language understood by the processor. A more efficient compiler results in better application performance. Intel's compilers are designed to help software developers deliver improved performance for their applications running on Intel architecture-based computing and communications systems. "Customers can experience a performance boost as a result of optimizing our Linux kernel using Intel's software development tools," said Red Flag Chairman Sun Yufang. "As the first Linux operating system vendor to optimize our kernel to run on Intel® architecture, we expect to achieve a competitive advantage and provide our customers with significantly improved capabilities." Intel's compiler offering includes Intel® C++ and Fortran Compilers for Windows* and Linux* as well as Intel C++ Compilers for Windows CE .NET*. The compilers are designed for systems based on the following Intel processors: Intel® Itanium® 2, Intel® Xeon™, Intel® Pentium® 4, Intel® Personal Internet Client Architecture for mobile phones and PDAs and the Intel® Pentium® M (a component of Intel® Centrino™ mobile technology). Intel also offers several other software tools that help developers take best advantage of Intel architecture platforms.