Absoft Begins Shipping New Top Performing Fortran Compilers

Today Absoft Corporation announced top performing new Fortran compilers optimized for both Intel Xeon and AMD Opteron processors running Linux, along with plans to offer these exciting new high-performance compilers for 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X using Intel processors. The new compilers will also be available in high-performance 'best of breed' software development kits (SDKs) and bundles from Absoft for clusters, grids, and servers running Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, including new systems from Apple using Intel processors. Benchmarks show Absoft’s new Fortran compilers produce executable binaries that are up to 20% faster than competing commercial compilers and 67% faster than the gnu g95 Fortran compiler. Independently conducted performance comparisons are publicly available at its Web site. George Delic, Ph.D., CEO of HiPERiSM Consulting, LLC reported similar results. "Absoft's Fortran compiler produced the fastest and most efficiently optimized code on the two hardware platforms we used for testing the AERMOD Air Quality Modeling code” said Delic. ”We discovered that the reason Absoft Fortran is faster is that it used some optimization magic to reduce branching instruction and TLB miss rates when compared to the competition. As a result Absoft Fortran execution time is comfortably ahead of the nearest competitor by 18%" continued Delic. The new Absoft Fortran compilers support the full Fortran 95 specifications, many Fortran 2003 extensions, and can generate both 64-bit and 32-bit executables. Customers who purchase version 9 Absoft Fortran compilers now for Mac OS X and Windows will receive specially discounted upgrades when the new version 10 Absoft compilers become available for those platforms. “The new Absoft Fortran compilers are the result of combining Absoft’s extremely robust compiler front end and runtime libraries with advanced code generation and optimization technology,” said Jeff Livesay, Absoft chief operating officer. “This compiler is fully compatible with the gnu tool chain and as a result of our research and development on these new compilers, Absoft is contributing several software additions to the open-source community under the GPL.” Multiple third party companion products including Visual Numerics’ Integrated Mathematical and Statistical Libraries (IMSL) Fortran Numerical Libraries, AnCAD’s MATFOR visualization tools, and Crescent Bay’s VAST auto-parallelization/auto-vectorization tools with OpenMP support will be available soon with the new high performance Absoft compilers. Absoft’s new Fortran compilers are fully source compatible with previous Absoft Fortran compilers so customers need only recompile their application to take advantage of significant additional performance. Absoft has added new lower cost configurations of its products to better serve additional market segments: Absoft “Express Fortran” includes the command line compiler and basic libraries via 12 month subscription starting at $299; Absoft “Express Plus Fortran” includes the command line compiler, basic libraries, advanced debugging and perpetual licenses, starting at $599; Absoft “Standard Fortran” includes both Fortran and C/C++ compilers, advanced debugging, basic math libraries, and a variety of license options, starting at $799. Special introductory pricing is available through March 31, 2006 for existing Absoft customers upgrading to the new Absoft Fortran compilers, starting as low as $299. All Absoft products include free, industry-leading technical support. Academic, government, and volume discounts are available. Additionally, MaxFlex™ licensing available exclusively from Absoft allows dynamic mixes of licenses from a single server across Linux, Windows and OS X, resulting in substantial cost savings for multi-platform environments. Order Today For more information on Absoft’s new top performing Fortran compilers or to purchase a license, please visit: http://www.absoft.com/Products/Compilers/Fortran/Linux/fortran95/, call 248-853-0050 and ask for sales, or contact sales@absoft.com.