The Zend PHP framework will now play nice with Google Data in a collaborative effort that puts the elves to shame. The component built by Google and Zend lives in the top level and not under Zend_service, which makes it more accessible and is mostly because the Gdata service is a protocol of its own, not merely a service wrapper. Google's component isn't the first to be included and follows the likes of Amazon, Yahoo, Flickr, and others to allow PHP developers to use data much easier through the Zend framework.

The new version of the Zend framework is out (version 0.60) as of last week, so go check it out when you get done going through your stocking one more time. The new framework has many bug fixes and features as you might expect, but that is why you can download it and have fun yourself.

Today Microsoft and Zend Technologies--the corporate face of ultra-popular web programming language PHP--announced a "technical collaboration to enhance the experience of running [PHP] on Windows Server 2003." The collaboration will entail technical improvements to Windows Server which will be released under the open source PHP license, Microsoft releasing a FastCGI component for IIS, Zend establishing a Windows testing lab "to maintain high performance of PHP on the Windows Server platform as PHP evolves," and active participation in the PHP community "ensuring open discussion to help developers planning to deploy PHP applications on the Windows Server platform."

This move is mutually beneficial to both companies. Microsoft wins by wooing PHP developers--traditionally an open source lot--to their platform and stemming migration to LAMP with promises of improved performance, and Zend wins by getting in good with Microsoft's own large and loyal circle of developers. "Since our preliminary work with Microsoft, we have already seen a better than 100 percent performance gain with some PHP applications on Windows Server 2003," says Andi Gutmans, Zend co-founder and CTO. He also claims that "a majority of PHP developers [are] developing on the Windows platform," though he does not make the distinction between developing on Windows and deploying on it.