In the past, PHP and Zend deployments were used primarily by small to medium-size Web development, design, and hosting companies. This makes perfect sense, as these types of businesses tend to be positioned particularly well to take advantage of PHP's Web-centric nature. More recently, however, Zend has reported a significant trend toward medium to large nontechnology-based businesses using its products. These companies have chosen Zend largely because PHP is widely used and has a substantial knowledge base. The language has caught on so well that it's finding its way into standard tech buzzword lore. Now that PHP has become a proven technology, its usage is growing in the United States, Germany, Japan, France, Canada, Italy, and the United Kingdom. These countries are all leaders in development technology, so expertise is easy to find. PHP is becoming a staple for Web developers, and intelligent business practice dictates that you use the resources at hand. Zend products target two broad categories -- Web development and performance enhancement. While many authoring tools are available for editing PHP and HTML, only Zend Studio and Zend Encoder are appropriate for serious professionals. With debugging and facilitated deployment functionalities, these products have elevated PHP use to be on par with competing technologies. As for performance enhancement, Zend's Accelerator product sells itself. The Zend platform offers better, less expensive improvements over third-party caching solutions. Additionally, PHP, having been designed specifically for Web use, runs more efficiently than competing technologies. Conclusion
With Zend's help, PHP has grown from a quest for better tools for Web development into a complete platform suitable for enterprise deployments. Its popularity has grown, creating a tremendous resource base. In a time when organizations are looking to squeeze every penny, the benefits of deploying PHP have been embraced. By taking advantage of PHP's open source nature, Zend has broken the paradigm and achieved what every company wants: cheap, fast, and good.
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