Sun Studio 11 is for developing C, C++, and Fortran applications to run on the Solaris or Linux operating systems on the Sparc, x86, and x64 hardware platforms. Enabling development on multicore and multithreaded systems, the tool supports the new multicore UltraSparc T1 chip, which had been codenamed Niagara.

Previously, Sun Studio sold for about US$3,000 per developer, but Sun hopes to leverage the tool to promote its hardware. "We want to lower the barrier for developers to be able to build applications to the great new hardware we're producing," said Dan Roberts, director of developer tools at Sun.

Available now, the tool also will be added to the Java Enterprise System middleware package and to Solaris as well.

Sun Studio 11 compilers offer the highest performance for developing 32- and 64-bit applications on multicore and multithreaded systems, according to Sun.

Sun last week unveiled a free version of its Sun Java Studio Enterprise tool for Java development.