Intel's Software group gung-ho about parallel computing

MUMBAI

MARCH 22, 2007

Intel's software business in India is something, which not many are aware of.
But, it no longer will remain obscure, for it has, after over a decade,
seriously involved the channels to cache in on the multi-core momentum.

According to Phil De La Zerda, Marketing Director, Developer Product
Division, Intel, the multi-core momentum has caught up. "Majority of the
laptops shipped this year will have a dual core processors. Soon we will see
multi-core on every desktop. As the number of cores grows, the need for
optimizing applications to make the best use of these cores will continue to
grow. Intel's software tools enable software developers to exploit parallelism
from multi-core processors," said Phil.

For the last many years Intel has been developing software tools and were
giving it away as free downloads to developers across the world. "At one
point we realized that these tools are valued best when it carries a price tag.
By putting a price tag to these efforts we have only apprised customers of the
seriousness these products carry," he added.

Intel offers a complete line of software development products, including
compilers, libraries and analysis tools, which improve developer productivity
and get more performance out of their systems and applications. It also offers
industry-leading support for parallel programming for systems of all sizes.

For Intel the priority is to help software developers come up with the best
applications that make the best use of multi-core processors. At the same time
Intel is foreseeing a big opportunity for its software products with the
multi-core trend. And to bring its products to a larger audience it is involving
the channels.

In October 2006 Intel initiated a channel program to promote its software
products. As a part of this program, it has now nominated the first set of three
resellers - Tata Elxsi, Softcell Technologies and Sonata. "The three
resellers will drive the adoption of Intel's Software Development products
amongst the developer community encouraging the growing popularity of
parallelism or parallel computing," said Phil.

Under the channel program resellers would have access to Intel's targeted
customer database and will be the first to receive training and products
roadmaps from Intel, in addition to complete marketing and sales support.

According to Phil the channel program provides benefits and opportunities to
drive market adoption of Intel Software Development products and participate in
the global multi-core momentum. "Multi-core is a tremendous opportunity in
transition for Indian software developers to build innovative solutions,"
added Narendra Bhandari, Director - Software Solutions Group, Intel Asia
Pacific, who highlighted the future of multi-core computing.

As part of the plan to continue the spread of parallelism to software
developers with their top resellers, Intel will be having software developer
seminars across the country.