Absoft, Maker of a Mac FORTRAN Compiler, Pledges Mac Support on Intel and IBM CPU's

Apple's Science and Technology list that we belong to received the following note (edited slightly) from Jeff Livesay, COO of Absoft:

Dear Fortran Community,

Apple's announcement at WWDC to migrate to Intel-based hardware over the next 24 months has given rise to much speculation regarding continued support for and availability of Fortran software development and migration tools on Apple platforms, especially on the heels of IBM's recent web site announcement that 64-bit Tiger support is currently unavailable for their popular XL compilers.

Absoft would like to briefly present its official position on Apple's announcement to the readers of this list.

Officially speaking:

1. Absoft is committed to continue developing and supporting software tools for Apple OS X computers based on both IBM and Intel processors. Absoft has supported Apple computers for more than two decades and we have made previous similar transitions with our friends at Apple (i.e. from the Motorola 68000 to the PowerPC).

2. Absoft has many years experience supporting software development tools for Intel-based hardware (both 32-bit and 64-bit) and has been marketing Fortran compilers and debugging solutions for Intel-based systems for over 15 years.

3. Absoft remains committed to providing the best tools available to help our customers migrate code from OS X based on IBM processors to OS X based on Intel processors. Absoft compilers are already source compatible between IBM POWER-based systems and Intel-based systems. No other compiler manufacturer offers this level of compatibility and platform independence. Further, Absoft compilers contain features such as big-endian, little-endian conversion to ease application migration between platforms.

4. Beyond the two new product announcements we made last week at WWDC, Absoft has many more exciting product announcements in store for Apple customers, to be made public at the right time; we will preserve the nature of this forum by reserving those announcements for our normal marketing channels.

A more detailed position statement is posted on Absoft's web site.

For additional information on Absoft products available on processors from both Intel and IBM, please visit our site. You may also sign up for our mailing list to receive news announcements from Absoft as soon as they are available.

Thank you for your longstanding loyalty to Absoft, Apple, and for the many recent kind words about Absoft and its products.

Jeff Livesay
Chief Operating Officer

We used Absoft's product when we used to develop extensive software for the Mac.

[Bill Fox]