Alliance Between IBM i Leaders Covers the Entire Development Cycle

Business Computer Design International, Inc. (BCD), the IBM i industry's most recognized application modernization solution vendor, and Zend, the PHP company, provider of the #1 application server for business critical PHP applications, have announced a go-to-market partnership.

Together, Zend and BCD will work to equip IBM i clients with the industry’s best and most complete range of modernization tools, from web-enablement of green screen applications to the development, management and scaling of new applications with PHP.

IBM i and PHP: A Powerful Alliance

Today’s IBM i clients are looking to maximize and leverage their investments in their IBM i systems. PHP solutions are a key asset in this process because they enable fast, easy open-source development on the IBM i. This means that clients can modernize their existing applications on the IBM i with minimum risk and cost, and easily extend the skills of their existing team of RPG/COBOL developers. Increased customer demand for PHP solutions reflects how well this value proposition of easy modernization and new app development is already succeeding. For example, Zend reports consistent 50 percent year-on-year growth in the IBM i space over the last 3 years.

Zend and BCD are the two biggest companies helping with IBM i application modernization and PHP development. Together, Zend and BCD provide a complete solution, from rapid development to proactive management in production, for IBM i applications. Both companies have helped thousands of IBM i clients adopt and optimize PHP solutions. BCD’s industry-leading development tools and strong template-based approach will be combined with Zend Server, which provides the ability to run PHP applications with management and scaling capabilities both in development and in production.

“PHP is the most talked-about technology we have seen the IBM i community embrace in the past few years,” said Siddhartha Agarwal, Zend’s VP of Worldwide Field Operations. “We continue to acquire new customers who want to modernize their legacy applications and create new PHP apps. Client after client has communicated that PHP is the fastest way to develop, web-enable, manage and serve new applications on the IBM i.”

Mastering PHP Development with BCD

Founded in 1976, BCD is heavily focused on helping clients modernize their IBM applications through development tools, templates and web enablement. Clients can easily web-enable and further modernize existing dated green screen applications with Presto, as well as create brand new applications with WebSmart PHP. BCD’s templated approach is designed for speed and ease of use, and developers can start producing results immediately.

In its more than 30 years in the IBM space, BCD has earned 40 industry awards for software excellence. BCD customers include Abbott Laboratories, Canadian Kawasaki Motors, Formica Corporation, GE USA, Glaxo SmithKline, PACCAR Parts, Skechers and Starbucks. BCD’s template-based approach has enabled customers to modernize their PHP applications with impressive speed and ease.

“I can create a web application with WebSmart PHP from an IBM i DB2 file, literally in minutes. It's that easy with the templates provided,” said Stephanie Beall, Encompass Group, LLC. Added Melinda Fowler of Ouachita Baptist University: “WebSmart PHP's templates not only allow me to write an input screen in an hour or less, but it greatly helped me through the learning curve in moving to the PHP language.”

“In our experience of working with thousands of IBM i customers, we’ve seen a growing demand for both creating new PHP applications as well as web-enabling and further modernizing existing dated green screen applications,” said Eric Figura, BCD's director of sales. “By working with BCD and Zend, our clients now have the best all-around solution to do both.”

Zend: Industry-Leading PHP Application Server

Zend has the leading application server, Zend Server, to help enterprises run and manage their PHP applications. Through Zend, clients can leverage their IBM i data and RPG/COBOL-based business logic to quickly develop and run modern supported applications rapidly, securely and with high availability. Companies such as Corvette America, Allied Beverage, GroupMT and Value Drug Mart have seen dramatic improvements in their development cycles and test times after adopting Zend and PHP.

GroupMT, a manufacturer in Germany with 50 manufacturing plants, built and modernized a highly available manufacturing management system using Zend’s solutions for IBM i. “We chose Zend for the robust quality of its PHP application development platform, with application monitoring, troubleshooting and optimization capabilities as well as strong integration with IBM I,” said Dr. Rainer Schmitz, head of IT at GroupMT. “Our entire approach to this project and the technology foundation that we’ve built upon the Zend PHP on IBM i platform has inspired a new, more collaborative approach to application development, with correct programming from the start. We have achieved a reliable high availability manufacturing management environment thanks to our use of Zend and IBM i.”

Upcoming Seminars by BCD and Zend

BCD and Zend will be presenting together at the RPG & Beyond Virtual Conference, for which BCD is the platinum sponsor. The session takes place on September 13, 2012 at 1 pm EST. Entitled “PHP on IBM i – What You Need to Get Started,” presenters will discuss how to get started with PHP on the IBM i. Attendees will learn how to leverage RPG business logic with the new Open Source toolkit, find IDEs that speed up development and use WebSmart PHP with Zend Server, among other things. To learn more about the seminar and register, please visit https://www.vconferenceonline.com/event/regeventweb.aspx?id=765;cid=RPGBRail.

BCD will be also participating at the PHP 2012 (ZendCon) conference in Santa Clara, California on October 22-25. The largest gathering of the PHP community, ZendCon 2012 will provide four days of professional education, training and networking opportunities, The conference will include a dedicated schedule of IBM i sessions including the latest on the new Open Source toolkit, DB2 for i and updates to the Zend Server stack. IBM i community leaders such Alan Seiden and John Valance, will present updates on the most important PHP on IBM i technologies, and IBM i participants will have an opportunity to discuss shared successes and challenges at a special networking event for IBM i clients.

About BCD

BCD is one of the most successful software organizations in the IBM i marketplace. They have over 30 years of experience and have successfully helped thousands of organizations worldwide modernize using BCD software solutions. BCD has received 40 industry awards for software excellence, is a member of IBM's IBM i ISV Advisory Board and an IBM Advanced Business Partner. Learn more at www.bcdsoftware.com.