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).

[Editor's Note: See an extended version of this story on Windows Dev Pro by clicking here.]