Microsoft and Zend Technologies Announce Technical Collaboration to Improve Interoperability of PHP on the Windows Server Platform / 10 / 2006 / Announcements / Zend News / Company / Zend.com

REDMOND, Wash., and CUPERTINO, Calif. — Oct. 31, 2006 — Microsoft Corp. and Zend Technologies Inc. today announced a technical collaboration to enhance the experience of running the PHP scripting language on Windows Server® 2003. The parties expect to extend the collaboration to the next version of Windows Server, code-named “Longhorn.” The resulting technology enhancements and ongoing interaction with the PHP community is expected to enable customers to take advantage of the Windows Server platform. The cooperative effort seeks to provide customers with richer functionality and better integration, resulting in improved performance and increased reliability.

The technology engagement between the two companies will include the following:

* Technical improvements for PHP deploying on the Windows Server platform will be submitted under the PHP license to the PHP community for feedback and contribution.
* Microsoft plans to develop and release an Internet Information Services (IIS) add-on component, FastCGI, that will serve as the interface between PHP and the IIS Web server. Microsoft expects that this FastCGI component will be made freely available from Microsoft on http://www.iis.net for users of Microsoft® Windows® XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista™ and Windows Server “Longhorn.”
* Zend will establish a Windows testing lab and conduct regular tests and performance improvements to maintain high performance of PHP on the Windows Server platform as PHP evolves.
* Microsoft and Zend will work to help ensure a production-quality PHP runtime environment for IIS 5.1 (Windows XP), IIS 6.0 (Windows Server 2003) and IIS 7.0 (Windows Vista and Windows Server “Longhorn”).
* Zend and Microsoft will actively participate in the PHP community, ensuring open discussion to help developers planning to deploy PHP applications on the Windows Server platform.

“Interoperability continues to be an important requirement for our customers, particularly when it comes to open source applications that run on Windows. This announcement today continues our commitment to making it easier for partners and developers — regardless of the development model they employ — to take advantage of increased reliability of the Microsoft Windows Server platform,” said Bill Hilf, general manager of Technical Platform Strategy at Microsoft. “Zend is a clear leader in the PHP community, and we are excited to be working with it on this joint collaboration effort designed to provide developers using PHP with the best possible experience within a Microsoft environment.”

“With a majority of PHP developers developing on the Windows platform, we saw a great opportunity to work together with Microsoft to improve the overall experience for our joint customers,” said Andi Gutmans, co-founder and chief technology officer at Zend. “Since our preliminary work with Microsoft, we have already seen a better than 100 percent performance gain with some PHP applications on Windows Server 2003.”

Zend and Microsoft will contribute the PHP improvements to the PHP community under the PHP license. Starting in the first quarter of 2007, Zend intends to use the improved technology in its Zend Core product line. A technology preview of the updated Windows version of Zend Core is available today at http://www.zend.com. Zend will also use the technology for its Zend Platform product line to enable its customers to support business-critical PHP production environments on the Windows Server platform.

“In February we announced a technical collaboration with Microsoft to enable our customers to optimize their existing Windows infrastructure,” said John Roberts, chairman and chief executive officer of SugarCRM Inc., a leading open source application company employing PHP. “This announcement underscores the demand from open source developers to take advantage of the Windows Sever platform and Microsoft’s commitment to make that happen.”