We are looking at purchasing 10 copies of Intel Composer XE 2013 for our development team. However, I'm confused about the IDE provided. Is it true that the FORTRAN compiler can integrate into the VS2012 shell, or the provided VS2010 shell, but the C++ compiler cannot? Do you have to purchase an upgraded version of Visual Studio to use the compiler in an interactive environment?
There is not yet a VS2012 shell for ifort; currently it's VS2010 shell. Intel C++ XE 2013 cannot use the VS Shell; it requires a full Visual Studio, 2008 or newer, of a version which supports 3rd party compilers (Professional or higher). ifort works both with the provided VS shell and with the same versions of full Visual Studio as Intel C++. http://software.intel.com/en-us/intel-composer-xe
And for completeness, both Intel C++ and Intel Visual Fortran XE 2013 can integrate into a separately obtained VS2012. Intel C++ depends on the MSVC project system, which is absent in the Shell.