Zend has issued a press release about a new series of online training classes they will be offering.

Zend Technologies, The PHP Company, continues its series of free online seminars started in early 2007.The so-called "Webinars" are aimed at anyone interested in PHP - web developers, consultants, project managers and technical decision makers. Topics include PHP as well as specific solutions and the tools Zend offers for enterprise-use of this programming language.

You can get more information on the events from the Zend website but here's a few to give you an idea: "Zend Cargo and Present: Using PHP to Build a Mobile Internet Platform", "Get Rich Quick: Building Ajax-based RIAS with Zend Framework and Appcelerator" and "i5 - Application Lifecycle Management for the Enterprise".

All of the webinars are free and, if you miss a session and you want to catch up, you can always download it from their archive.

A new article on the ITJungle.com website asks if Zend's support of PHP on IBM's System i machines could be the "next RPG", replacing the current language as the language of choice.

For years, the System i platform and its followers have marched through the wilderness of development languages, seeking a suitable replacement for the aging RPG, whose benefits aren't a good fit for a Web world. Now, some platform advocates see the server-side scripting language PHP stepping into that role.

The bulk of the article is an interview between Alex Woodie (of ITJungle.com) and Duncan Kenzie, president of Excel Systems. They cover topics like:

• Duncan's first perceptions of PHP
• why he decided it would be a good language to go with
• how it works in their WebSmart software
• differences between Java and PHP impacts
• the ease of the shift for RPG programmers to PHP

Ivo Jansch has a recent post made the other day that takes a look at one of the recent offerings from IBM targeted at PHP developers - the functionality to allow PHP to run on their System i platform.

Some of the developers at Ibuildings are working with PHP on IBM's System-i platform. If that name doesn't ring a bell, it has been called 'iSeries' for a while and it's basically a new name for the old AS/400. [...] Recently IBM and Zend have teamed up to port PHP to the i5/OS operating system. So far this port seems succesful; one of the reasons is perhaps that PHP is easier to adopt by traditional System-i developers than Java, which forces you to learn Object Oriented Programming.

He makes mention of the db2 database extension you can use to access the database as well as a "i5 toolkit" to help with the same. He even links to an article talking about it.

As mentioned on the Zend Developer Zone today, there's a new article posted over on the TMCNet.com website about the support and cooperation that IBM is giving PHPers all over the world running System i machines.

Over the past year, Zend and IBM have worked together to make Zend's popular PHP products available for V5R3 and V5R4 versions of i5/OS. Zend Core for i5/OS is a fully tested and enhanced version of open source PHP; Zend Platform for i5/OS is a PHP production environment that improves application management and performance; and Zend Studio for i5/OS is a PHP Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that includes all of the components necessary to support the lifecycle of PHP applications created on i5/OS.

Mark Shearer, general manager IBM System i also notes that one of the goals of the cooperative effort was one they've met successfully so far - to bring tools to System i users to allow them to quickly and easily develop applications in their environment.

The article also includes a small list of companies already using this technology including Parts Depot, MedDirect and HarrisData.

The Zend Developer Zone has a new tutorial posted today from Andi Gutmans, Sam Pinkhasov, and Cal Evans all set to step you through the integration of PHP with a System i setup via some web service calls.

Zend provides a complete set of products that support System i integration from development to production. Zend's solutions include native System i database support and System i objects access. (e.g., RPG/COBOL/CL programs, CL commands, spooled file entries, data area and many more).

In this article we will show how quick and simple it is to create a Web Service wrapper for an existing RPG program.

They start from the beginning (a very good place to start) with what web services are and how they can benefit an application. With that under your belt, you're ready to set off into the creation of your own web service. They do this in Zend Studio to make things easier, using its built-in support for the System i to their advantage.

They walk you through each step - setting of the web service object, updating the username/password for the connection, and defining the RPG program parameters. Finally, they use the WSDL Generator Wizard to create a WSDL file to help with the public consumption of your web service application.

Cal Evans has posted a quick note over on the Zend Developer Zone about a podcast that Zend co-founder Andi Gutmans participated in for RedMonk Radio.

Andi is featured in episode #33 of RedMonk radio. In it James and Conte quiz Andi about PHP on the IBM System i, scalability, The Microsoft partnership, and a host of other topics.

They honed in on the System i stuff and mention how Java, one thought to be the perfect fit for the platform, has fallen short.

You can grab the podcast directly from here or, if you want to find out more about the RedMonk Podcast, check out their site.

In an effort to spread the word even more about the partnerships that Zend is doing with Microsoft and IBM, the crew over at InfoWorld have posted a new interview they did with Andi Gutmans at the (just passed) Zend/PHP Conference & Expo about the situation.

Andi Gutmans, a cofounder of the company and its vice president of technology, spoke with InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill this week at the Zend/PHP Conference & Expo in San Jose, Calif., about PHP, the company's blockbuster deal with Microsoft, and other happenings.

They talk about the significance of the move, the role Zend is going to play, how PHP compares and fits in the market, Zend's IDE project, and the IBM work that's being done.

As linked to by the Zend Developer Zone today, the MC|Press online site has a new article about the latest feature IBM has added to the PHP distributions on their System i servers - the mail() function.

PHP, the popular Web development language, has long provided a built-in function, mail(), to send email messages. Until recently, this function was available only on non-System i platforms. The limitation applied both to home-grown System i PHP versions and to beta releases of Zend Core for i5/OS (the PHP distribution by IBM and Zend).

Users of PHP on System i can now rejoice. The GA release of Zend Core for i5/OS, introduced in August 2006, implements mail().

They cover all aspects of why this is definitely a good thing. Developers tend to take this handy function for granted until they really need to interact with the outside world via emails. They take a brief look at what the mail function is, including how it's used, configuration settings for it, and some of the other alternatives that are offered (with advantages and disadvantages of choosing them).

From ITJungle.com today, there's a new article that talks to Zend about their effort to get PHP pushed to the System i platform via the Zend Core and the progress it's making.

The push to create a new generation of young PHP programmers and PHP-driven Web applications on the IBM System i is moving forward according to plan, according to Zend Technology, the company commercializing the open source scripting language and providing support and training services. "Things are going phenomenally well," Zend business development vice president Mike Pinette says, giving evidence of that early success. "We're firing on all cylinders."

They go on to talk about other offerings Zend is making available for the platform including their popular Zend Platform package. There's talk of how Zend's effort is spreading (across countries) and their additional focus on the "bread and butter" shops - "manufacturers, distributors, retail chains, banks, and financial institutions that have heavily invested in OS/400 and RPG over the years".