After reading this question http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2206313/is-erlang-the-c-of-the-clustered-computing-world , I am wondering the official Erlang OTP compiles with HiPE?
In other words, when I compile my .erl source with the OTP release R13 (as example), does it produce "object code" BEAM?
Looking at http://www.it.uu.se/research/group/hipe/ , it does not appear that a standalone HiPE compiler is maintained anymore.
I think this depends on what options you passed to the configure script when you compiled the Erlang compiler. It certainly can include it but whether it does by default or not is another issue.
By default HiPE is not used to compile OTP. Though it is known that OTP libraries can be successfully compiled using HiPE and usually it gives some boost (though it depends on your application).
When you run a erlc on your .erl file it produces BEAM file, which is NOT compiled to native code witn HiPE. To compile an .erl file to native code using HiPE just run erlc +native file.erl.
Standalone HiPE compiler is not maintained anymore, since it was included into core Erlang/OTP distribution.