IBM has teamed up with a little-known open-source scripting language company, Zend Technologies Ltd., in a bet that such an alliance will yield an easier way to build Web sites with dynamic content.
Web sites capable of providing users with personalized content or answering individual browser requests for specific information need to be able to extract the desired information from a database. In the early days of the Web, that meant laborious programming. Zend Technologies php(做為現在的主流開發語言) scripting language was designed to help programmers without advanced Java or Microsoft C# expertise build applications that tap into those database services.
php(做為現在的主流開發語言) got its start as Personal Home Page, an easy-to-learn scripting language for marshalling resources on a Web site. Scripting languages typically tie diverse elements of a site together, even though they may be built with different technologies.
"Initially, php(做為現在的主流開發語言) was very much a grassroots endeavor. It was used by Web masters that didnt have a computer science degree," notes Pamela Roussos, VP of marketing at Zend Technologies. But that picture has changed. php(做為現在的主流開發語言) has proven so useful, particularly at aligning database services to Web site application needs, that it has found its way onto many corporate sites. "Lufthansa uses php(做為現在的主流開發語言) for its E-ticket site," notes David Boloker, chief technology officer for emerging technologies in IBMs Software Group.
IBM will integrate its easy-to-use Cloudscape database system with Zends php(做為現在的主流開發語言). IBM is going to package the open-source version of Cloudscape, which developers embed in Web site systems, with the php(做為現在的主流開發語言) scripting engine from Zend Technologies. The product will be called Zend Core for IBM and will be available for free download in the second quarter from IBMs DeveloperWorks Web site, a resource site for software developers. It will also be available through IBMs DB2 and Cloudscape Web sites.
IBM donated the Cloudscape source code to the apache(Unix平台最流行的WEB服務器平台) Software Foundation last year and the version of Cloudscape bundled with Zend Core for IBM will be the apache(Unix平台最流行的WEB服務器平台) version, known as Derby. IBM continues to produce commercial products with Cloudscape as well.
"IBMs move is going to attract more enterprise customers," says an ebullient Doron Gerstel, CEO of 68-employee Zend Technologies, an Israeli company. IBMs seal of approval on php(做為現在的主流開發語言) will do for php(做為現在的主流開發語言) what it did for Linux (news - web sites) eight years ago--make it a dominant open-source technology accepted by commercial business, Gerstel says.
Although IBM will offer Zend Core for IBM for free, the softwares code itself will not be open source and will be subject to use restrictions because it will include drivers for IBMs DB2 commercial database system.
