Intel's Grove aims for Java high ground

Chairman and CEO Grove touted the chip giant's VTune 2.5a, strengthening his firm's claims of providing the best platform for running Java. Grove said that Java tool and application developers will be able to optimise perfomance for Intel chips using VTune. The software can graph bottlenecks and automatically suggest optimisation techniques. It will be generally available from August.

"Intel architecture provides the highest performance platform for Java," Grove said. "Some programmers may see as much as a twelve-fold increase in performance in their software code after optimising it with VTune for Java."

Grove also played a favourite theme: the emergence of "visual computing" and its implications for processor performance. "Among new uses, we envisage the PC routinely translating all types of raw data into rich 3D models in seconds, helping users better assimilate the information at hand. Interactive business transactions, for example, conducted `screen to screen' will combine video, realistic graphics and audio to educate or demonstrate new products or services to potential customers."