New Version of Zend Framework Drives Cloud Portability and Mobile Application Development

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Nov. 2, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- ZENDCON 2010 -- Zend Technologies, the PHP Company, today announced general availability of Zend Framework 1.11, the new release of its market-leading PHP application framework. Zend Framework 1.11 now includes the Simple Cloud API and adds support for mobile application development. Zend Framework is the world's leading PHP application framework, with more than 15 million downloads and over 500 contributors, including Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Adobe. This release exemplifies the leadership role of Zend Framework in accelerating the adoption of PHP and open source software by mainstream corporate IT.

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Zend Framework Drives Cloud Portability

Zend Framework now includes the Simple Cloud API, allowing PHP developers to build portable cloud applications. The Simple Cloud API open source initiative was begun in 2009 by co-founding partners Zend, IBM, Microsoft, Nirvanix, RackSpace and Go-Grid  to facilitate the development of cloud applications that can access services on all major cloud platforms. With Zend Framework 1.11, developers have access to the first deliverables for the Simple Cloud API project.

• Document Service integration allows developers to utilize a variety of NoSQL cloud storage solutions including Amazon SimpleDB and Microsoft Windows Azure Table storage.
• Queue Service integration allows developers to perform asynchronous operations in order to offload heavy-lifting, pre-cache pages, and more. Queue Service integrations include Amazon Simple Queue System (SQS), Microsoft Windows Azure Queue service, and all adapters supported by the Zend Framework Zend_Queue component.
• Storage Service integration allows developers to push static resources such as images and archives to the cloud. Currently supported services include: Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), Microsoft Windows Azure Blog storage, and Nirvanix.

According to Matthew Weier O'Phinney, Zend Framework Project Lead, "Vendor lock-in is a concern to many companies thinking about running their applications in the cloud. With Zend Framework 1.11, developers can start writing cloud applications that support multiple cloud providers, thus mitigating the risk of lock-in."

"IBM is pleased to continue its work with Zend and other contributors to this project and to see growing adoption of cloud computing platforms by the PHP community," said Dr. Angel Luis Diaz, IBM Vice President for Software Standards and Cloud Computing. "Together, we're enabling developers to invoke cloud services in a common way across cloud providers, and significantly reduce application development costs while providing customer choice."

"The Simple Cloud API is an important catalyst for open and interoperable cloud computing," said Jean Paoli, General Manager of Interoperability Strategy at Microsoft Corp. "Microsoft has an ongoing investment in the Simple Cloud API project, together with Zend and other contributors. We are gratified to see the role this project is playing in driving acceptance among PHP developers for cloud computing platforms and hope that many of these developers are encouraged to use Windows Azure."

Zend Framework Leads Mobile Application Development

Addressing the rapidly increasing demand for mobile applications, Zend Framework 1.11 enables developers to quickly and easily build highly engaging PHP applications targeted to mobile devices, including iPhone and Android phones.

The new mobile device support in Zend Framework 1.11 provides functionality for detecting mobile device types and their capabilities. Developers may choose from the publically-available WURFL database, TeraWurfl, or DeviceAtlas in order to retrieve device capabilities, or write their own classes to leverage additional device databases.

Additional Zend Framework 1.11 mobile support includes the Dojo Toolkit 1.5 update. Dojo 1.5 includes the dojox.mobile subproject, which delivers a flexible lightweight mobile application framework, including CSS3 and JavaScript widgets optimized for use on mobile devices and for mobile-specific contexts.

"We are excited about contributing the mobile application development component to Zend Framework," said Raphael Carles, CTO at Interakting, a leading European interactive agency. "Using Zend Framework, we were able to provide a highly standardized process for building web and mobile applications for our enterprise customers. The new release of Zend Framework makes development of multi-channel and multi-platform web applications easier, and enables us to implement complex PHP projects faster."

Learn more about the Zend Framework open source project at http://framework.zend.com.

Download Zend Framework 1.11 from http://framework.zend.com/download/latest.

Learn more about the Simple Cloud API at http://simplecloud.org.

About Zend Technologies

Zend Technologies, Inc., the PHP Company, is the leading provider of products and services for developing, deploying and managing business-critical PHP applications on-premise and in the cloud. PHP runs 35 percent of the world's Web sites and has quickly become the most popular language for building dynamic Web applications. Deployed at more than 30,000 companies worldwide, the Zend family of products delivers a comprehensive solution for supporting the entire lifecycle of PHP applications. Zend is headquartered in Cupertino, California. Learn more at http://www.zend.com.

SOURCE Zend Technologies