Seven and half years and a lot of downloads later the development team decided that a complete makeover is necessary not only to include more Web 2.0 features but also to add new functions to one of the most popular Open Source Groupware based on PHP. [...] There are still some months left till PHProjekt 6 will be released but for the time being you can follow the progress in a developers' blog started recently.

The blog already has information on the upcoming version (PHProjekt 6) and a first part of a "what's new" series on additions to the project. PHProject is an open source groupware application providing tools like shared calendars, project management and file management.

I have to vehemently disagree with this, and not just because PHP is my language of preference.

He gives several reasons to back up the claim including the fact that large players use the language in high-profile sites as well as the recent upturn of popularity the language has seen (as people come back from the over-hyped other languages).

He mentions collaborations between PHP companies/divisions as well as components made to more efficiently run PHP applications on other web server types.

It offers a great start to reducing the coding yet helps you produce cool applications using Ajax, ATOM feeds and REST Web Services. It is a great on-ramp to get you working with Zend Core and IBM DB2 Express-C and Rich Internet Applications (RIA). This toolkit will also work with Zend Core for IBM, check out the FAQ. This is an excellent use case for DB2 pureXML.

It makes things simple like making ATOM feeds from a data in a pureXML database, making web services as simple as a point and click operation and check out the usage of your database via an Ajaxed interface.

Check out the project's website for more information. Currently, the project requires Windows (either XP or Server 2003).

he collaboration between Zend and Actuate has resulted in new capabilities in the 3.0 version of the Zend Platform, which is available today for download as a pre-release version at www.zend.com. Zend Platform 3.0 allows PHP developers to quickly integrate reporting capabilities, including charting, to web applications by calling Actuate BIRT reports via the Zend Java Bridge.

New functionality included in this collaboration includes flexibility when generating the reports (output formats/export options), an easy-to-use visual environment, and an integrated charting system including various graphing formats (like pie, chart, area, scatter, and stock).

Check out the full press release for the full story on this collaboration.

She mentions the "about face" that Microsoft has seemingly made when it comes to Open Source projects, specifically the Zend deal:

As a DigitalJournal writer pointed out yesterday, the deal makes great business sense for Microsoft, given that PHP runs more than 2 million Web sites and the software company's servers and tools business contributed one-fourth of its total revenue in the latest quarter.

You can get complete information regarding the collaboration from the Zend website.

Today we announced a partnership with Microsoft. The goal of this technical collaboration is to make PHP on Windows a first class citizen. It has always been our goal to make PHP run well on any platform, and this initiative reinforces that. Both companies have also observed huge interest both from the community and our respective customers bases in good PHP support on Windows, and therefore, collaborating on making this happen is a no-brainer for both.

He mentions that it's not the first time that Zend and Microsoft have collaborated, but that this new effort will go far and above the previous effort. He goes on to talk about what the partnership means for both companies and the steps that are being made to get the functionality stable and out to the community.

• A technical collaboration with Microsoft to enhance the experience of running the PHP scripting language on Windows Server 2003 and the next version of Windows Server, code-named "Longhorn." The cooperative effort aims to provide customers with richer functionality and better integration.
• Zend also announced an agreement with MySQL that will enable it to better integrate the open source database with Zend products, including the option of full integration.
• New milestone releases of Zend Framework and the PHP Eclipse project were announced, along with Zend Studio 5.5 and an update to Zend Core for IBM that makes it compatible with the latest version of DB2 and adds support for the Informix Dynamic Server (IDS). A new product called ZendBox[tm], a fully hosted and managed PHP 5 Technology stack was also announced.

Youo can get complete information on all of these new innovations from Zend on their press release page:

• Information on ZendBox
• Zend and Microsoft's collaboration
• the Zend Product Updates

He continues on to talk about how this will (positively) effect the i5/OS community, giving them an alternative to Java. He also compares the PHP community and the i5/OS community - they're both passionate about what they do and they both tend to be made up of people with no formal computer science experiences.

Windows is making a strong play for the server market with their "Cross Training for Developers" program. And look at the co-sponsors: O'Reilly and Dr. Dobbs. Not too shabby.

Oh, and if you dig around on the site you will see tutorials on PHP, Java and Coldfusion. You will also see that if you sign up for three of their webcasts you will get a free copy of Visual Studio 2005, a free book and some other stuff that they don't tell you about. What better way to fend off the IBM/Eclipse onslaught than start giving away Studio. Whoever said Microsoft wasn't getting smarter with age was wrong.

It's an interesting tactic, and it'll be interesting to see how it turns out. So far, from what Marcus has said, it seems like a half-hearted effort - but that might just be because it's just getting the ball rolling.]]> Tue, 28 Feb 2006 06:35:11 -0600 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/4752 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/4752 interview with Andi Gutmans, Ben Ramsey has posted a few of his notes on it.

Today, PHP Architect and Pro PHP Podcast held their first live podcast (Interview with Andi Gutmans) since PHP Architect announced their 'œacquisition'� of the podcast. However, due to some technical difficulties, the live feed was canceled after about fifteen minutes into the interview, and the audience was unable to participate in the Q & A session at the end.

Nevertheless, I do have a few notes from the interview to share.

His notes include some of the talk on the Zend PHP Collaboration project (what it really is and how it's different from the frameowork), PHP competing with .NET, and some of the strengths that PHP has to offer...]]> Mon, 30 Jan 2006 07:25:06 -0600