Microsoft and Zend Announce Technical Collaboration

There has just been an announcement detailed on the Microsoft PressPass and also the http://port25.technet.com/ sites, providing details on the Technical Collaboration between Microsoft and Zend Technologies.

This collaboration, announced at the Zend/PHP Conference in San Jose, aims to enhance the experience of running the PHP scripting language on not only current generation Windows Server, but also 'Longhorn' Server, released next year.  The result of this collaboration really will allow customers to utilise the power of the Windows Server Platform, through richer functionality, better integration and hence, improved performance and increased reliability.

We see there being 3 key areas of collaboration (taken from the press release):

• Core PHP and IIS Collaboration. Zend and Microsoft will collaborate to develop PHP performance improvements to significantly increase the performance of PHP on Windows. Microsoft will work with engineers from Zend and the PHP community to identify and implement improvements for PHP on IIS6 (part of Windows Server 2003) and IIS7 (Windows Server ‘Longhorn’). These improvements will be submitted under the PHP license to the PHP community.  Additionally, Microsoft will develop and release an IIS add-on component (FastCGI) that will serve as the interface between PHP and the IIS webserver. This FastCGI component will be made freely available from Microsoft for licensed users of Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server ‘Longhorn.’
  
• Continuous Testing & Engineering. Zend will establish a Windows testing lab and conduct regular tests and performance improvements to maintain high performance of PHP on Windows as PHP evolves.
  
• Community Participation. Zend and Microsoft will continue to actively participate in the PHP community to continue to address Windows-related issues.

You can read the full press release over on Microsoft PressPass, where you will also find information on a Bill Hilf keynote, alongside Zeev Suraski (Zend) and Andi Gutmans (CTO & Founder Zend), demonstrating the core initial work on PHP for Windows.