Zend Technologies has built an application server for PHP that it hopes can slowly convert frustrated Java programmers as well as those relying on Java on the web and in the enterprise.
On Tuesday, the company is expected to unveil the Zend Server, a paid-for PHP stack that comes with service agreements and support and the free Zend Server Community Edition.
Zend's chief executive and co-founder Andi Gutmans called the servers the culmination of five-years' work. That's seen creation of the Zend Framework and integration with Windows and databases from Oracle and IBM. It's also seen an Eclipse PHP plug-in project refine the runtime experience and provide developer tools plug-ins based on Eclipse.
The next phase under recently named CEO Gutmans is the cloud. Gutmans told The Reg the Zend Frameworks would be dealing with virtualization and packaging inside and outside of the firewall to facilitate deployment in the cloud in the next year. Already, the Zend Framework features Amazon APIs and there are plans to support Microsoft's Azure.