Zend partnership creates app dev environment Hoping to spur its open source development strategies, IBM has announced a deal with Zend Technologies to create what it believes is among the first integrated programming solutions using the Web-based PHP (PHP Hypertext Preprocessor) language.IBM officials also committed to delivering at least 30 existing software projects to open source developers.The Zend agreement calls for the integration of two open source technologies: IBM’s Cloudscape database and Zend’s PHP environment. The combined technologies will create Zend Core for IBM, to serve as an “out-of-the-box” PHP development and production environment allowing corporate users to more easily develop, deploy, and manage open source applications. Based on PHP 5.0, Zend Core for IBM integrates the Cloudscape Server and DB2, and adds native support for XML as well as Web services.Both companies also announced they will jointly work to include database integration frameworks and improved PHP Web services standards.IBM officials said they hope their endorsement of PHP will drum up more support among developers for Cloudscape. Some open source application developers said they were heartened by the alliance. “We think having out-of-the-box solutions for database application development and deployment is tremendously significant,” said Chris Stephens, lead developer at The Selling Source. Software Development