Zend, Sun bringing PHP to the enterprise

Zend Technologies, parent company of the popular open source PHP Web scripting engine, today will announce a major partnership deal with Sun Microsystems in a move that may well advance PHP’s position in the major leagues of e-business.The small Israel-based company today will announce a new suite of products that integrates directly with Sun’s newly branded Java System Web Server 6.1, formerly known as Sun ONE Web Server 6.1. As a result of this new partnership, Sun has enlisted a key ally in attracting the PHP development community to its server offerings.

“There are now more than 10 million domains now on the public Web (outside firewalls) using some form of PHP in their system,” said Zend marketing executive Brad Young. “PHP is a major factor in Web site building; the PHP community is estimated to be between 400,000 and 500,000 developers worldwide. Interest continues to grow steadily in PHP.”

Since its creation by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1995, PHP has grown slowly but steadily in the small- to mid-market development community but hasn’t made much of a mark to date in the JavaScript and ASP.NET-dominated corporate Web world. The new arrangement with Sun puts Zend and its PHP software on an entirely new plane in the e-business realm.

“Sun is quite aware of the increased influence of PHP and its open source community,” said Sun Director of Java Web Services Chris Hogan, “and we were delighted to find an enterprise-quality solution in Zend’s PHP offerings. There were a lot of natural synergies in this relationship. As a result, Zend’s PHP engine is now natively supported throughout our Java Enterprise Server stack.”

Hogan said that the new PHP package will be co-marketed to such verticals such as health care, financial services, news media, and government agencies.

Zend’s new product offering includes two components:

• PHP Enabler for Sun Java System Web Server – Enables PHP to integrate and run smoothly with Java System Web Server. The module, using a highly optimized FastCGI architecture, joins the reliability of PHP as CGI with the extensibility and efficiency of in-process NSAPI architecture.
• Zend Performance Suite for Sun Java System Web Server — Improves the performance of PHP on the Java System Web Server. The suite provides code acceleration, content caching, and data compression, enabling enterprises to improve the response time and server load ability of its Web applications.

“Working with Sun — on Java System Web Server as well as on Java-based standards — helps extend PHP even further into the enterprise,” said Zeev Suraski, Zend’s CTO. “And since enterprise users can’t compromise on support and performance, we are stepping up to answer the need.”

The PHP Enabler component for Sun Java System Web Server is available free of charge, without support. A package including full product support plus the Zend Performance Suite and the PHP enabler is priced starting at $775 per server. The product suite is available immediately by contacting Zend.