Windows Server 2008 Now 'PHP Ready'

CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA - March 04, 2008 - Zend Technologies, the PHP Company, today announced that high-performance web applications can be deployed with confidence on Microsoft's Windows Server 2008, the next generation platform for running business-critical applications. Microsoft and Zend have worked together on Zend Core, Zend's tested, certified and supported version of PHP. Zend Core and PHP are now certified for Windows Server 2008.

"Microsoft and Zend continue to collaborate to ensure performance and reliability with PHP and Windows," said Sam Ramji, director of open source technology strategy at Microsoft. "Together we are creating high levels of compatibility and supporting the workload and the development styles that our customers want to use on Windows Server."

This announcement is the latest in a series of collaborations between Zend and Microsoft aimed at delivering high performance and reliability for PHP applications running on the Windows Server platform. Several of these enhancements have been contributed back to the PHP community. Late last year, Microsoft announced delivery of its FastCGI component for IIS, an interface between PHP and the IIS Web server that delivered substantial reliability and performance benefits for PHP applications running on Windows. Zend and Microsoft also support Cardspace, Microsoft's digital identity framework, which is integrated into Zend Framework, the leading PHP open source framework for building modern web applications and web services. In addition, Microsoft has undertaken more than a dozen projects to ensure that the most popular PHP applications run on Windows, including Mambo, WordPress and Coppermine, among others.

"Today's announcement is another milestone in our multi-year agreement to ensure that PHP is a first-class citizen on the Windows Server platform," said Zend CTO and Co-Founder Andi Gutmans. "We're pleased that Windows Server 2008 is 'PHP ready' at launch. Going forward, Zend's entire product portfolio will support Server 2008, including Zend Platform our PHP application server which enables managing and scaling large scale PHP applications."

Windows Server 2008 software certification consists of approximately 100 test cases that independently confirm an application's compliance with best practices for compatibility, security, reliability, and availability on the new platform, while ensuring the software performs in a 64-bit environment. The certification identifies top-performing technologies that are ready to deploy in mission-critical environments. As a participant in the Microsoft Early Access Program (EAP) for Windows Server 2008 Software Certification, Zend Core is one of more than 300 applications that are eligible for certification on a pre-release version of the new platform.

Details about Windows Server 2008 software certification, its test framework, and the Early Access Program are available at www.innovateonwindowsserver.com.

About Zend

Zend Technologies, Inc., the PHP Company, is the leading provider of products and services for developing, deploying and managing business-critical PHP applications. PHP is used by more than twenty million websites and has quickly become the most popular language for building dynamic web applications. Deployed at more than 15,000 companies worldwide, Zend's family of products provides a comprehensive platform for supporting the entire lifecycle of PHP applications. Zend is headquartered in Cupertino, California. For more information, please visit www.zend.com, or call 1-408-253-8800.