Zend's contribution to PHP began in 1997 when Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans started work on a rewrite of the core scripting engine of PHP. This work helped to redefine PHP as a full-featured development language.

Zend's contributions continued with PHP 4 which saw the introduction of the Zend Engine, a highly optimized execution engine. This enhancement allowed modules such as debuggers, performance boosters and custom loaders to dynamically extend PHP for a broader range of functionality. Whenever you're using any plug-in module today, you're doing so thanks to the extensibility support of the Zend Engine. In addition, the Zend Engine provides memory and resource management, and other standard services for the PHP language.

Zend continued its work on PHP and Zend engine with the introduction of Zend Engine 2. Zend Engine 2 debuted in PHP 5.0 and added a robust and extensible object model and even more performance enhancements.

Zend provides leadership and guidance for the direction of the core language and other enhancements. In addition to our ongoing Zend Engine work, Zend provides significant input on new directions for PHP. Items such as "namespaces", performance, internationalization and Unicode support are just some examples of our ongoing involvement in PHP 5 and PHP 6.

Another key area of focus is on interoperability. Zend works with database vendors to ensure that PHP has consistent database functionality across a wide range of database applications. Some of this work has also had a direct impact on the database developments themselves including Oracle’s recent support for database resident connection pooling in Oracle 11g. This can provide massive improvements in scalability for large business-critical PHP deployments.

Zend provides valuable input into the support for web services, specifically the SOAP APIs where emphasis was placed on compliance and interoperability. Zend has also provides support for the porting of PHP to new platforms such as our work with IBM to provide PHP support for the System i'si5/OS operating system.

Zend is also a contributor to the PHP security response team. This team is responsible for addressing security related problems in PHP. The team is chartered to ensure that any reported security issues are addressed quickly and effectively.

Zend provides key input for several performance related activities. Most recently our work in PHP 5.2 with Microsoft has resulted in a 200% to 300% performance increase of PHP on the Windows™ platform.. For the first time PHP performance on Windows is on par with PHP performance on Linux.

Zend is committed to continuing its investments in the PHP community by both contributing directly to the core technologies and by help maintain and grow the vibrant ecosystem PHP enjoys today.

Zend Framework

Zend Framework--an open-source community, and the leading PHP 5 framework today

Zend Technologies recognizes that contributing to the open-source community is important and we've tried to put our "money where our mouths are" by devoting significant company resources to sponsoring and leading the Zend Framework project.

Comprising a cadre of top engineers at Zend, along with more than 300 other contributors, including IBM and other major corporate contributors, the team and community have delivered a highly acclaimed, well-supported, thoroughly tested PHP 5 framework that gives you a vibrant community your company can depend on, open-source code you can use as you please (including building your own business specific code and reselling as you see fit--with the new BSD license), and the latest Web 2.0 and other modern features all web applications need.