Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Partners With Zend
jesse.castro writes to point out news of Microsoft striking a multi-year partnership with PHP provider Zend to improve PHP's performance on Windows-based Web servers. From the article: "Rather than marking a sudden change of course, Microsoft is openly engaging in a dialogue with Zend, a key open source promoter, and millions of PHP developers, analysts said."
Don't be silly. They want to make sure that anything where Linux as an alternative is better becomes not better. They're done fighting everyone and are embracing the democratization of innovation and personal preference. The uses of PHP or ASP don't have to be rational for them to make money selling windows server that run both...
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
You left out their favorite phase. Extinguish.
I think the biggest concern would be that there would start to be Windows-only features or performance benefits in PHP. If you think about it, Microsoft of course has their own interest in mind, namely selling more Windows Server licenses. If MS can claim that PHP runs better/faster on Windows than on a Linux server, they'll be able to sell more licenses. And would their agreement with Zend hamstring development of PHP on other platforms possibly?
My gut is telling me that this is just to stop customer hemorrhaging. People say "We like PHP and that's what our code is in so we can't use Windows" or "... but Linux is faster" (just a guess). So MS is helping with PHP so people can either switch FROM Linux to Windows and easily keep/develop PHP, or just get better performance for their current code (if there is a very measurable performance hit from running Windows, they'd want that fixed).
Either way it's good, but that's my guess why they are doing this ("Just switch to ASP.Net, it's great" probably wasn't working well for most shops that already have $$$ invested in PHP code).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
"Pulling Zend off my Apache box now. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish isn't going to get me this time."
The fact that you can pull it off of your apache box at the drop of a hat when righteous indignation strikes means you aren't using it for a single thing that is important. Am I supposed to be impressed that you're taking a stand by removing a product you're not really using?
yer a nut!
If what you say is indeed true then this is the first time in some 20+ years that Microsoft is changing from Embrace/Extend/Extinguish to... Sorry, I don't believe it. There is not one company to have survived a partnership with Microsoft. In five years, if Zend is still Zend and PHP is still PHP and not some dot-net extension, you might have a point.
I view this as the end of Zend and the kiss of death to PHP. If PHP gets better under Windows then it will probably somehow get worse under Linux. Will that make people stop using Linux and switch to Windows? Don't bet on it...