Zend Technologies and Parallels announced that they will collaborate on solutions that enable hosting providers to deliver PHP applications through Parallels’ control panels and server virtualization offerings. The companies will deliver product interoperability and integration, define packaging and distribution standards, and pursue joint marketing initiatives.

Zend products will be certified with the Application Packaging Standard (APS), a new application packaging format designed to help implement software as a service (SaaS). Using the APS standard, hosting providers will be able to configure technology stacks based on Zend products to deliver premium PHP solutions for operating business-critical web applications.

“The APS standard is already supported by more than 100 PHP applications for everything from blogging and collaboration to content management, ecommerce and CRM,” said Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels. “The Parallels-Zend partnership advances the web hosting industry by helping service providers deliver a greater variety of professional PHP applications and by growing the channel for PHP application vendors.”

“With thousands of web applications available for individual and business use, PHP is one of the key technologies for hosting companies to support,” said Mark de Visser, chief marketing officer, Zend Technologies. “Combining the PHP expertise of Zend with the packaging, delivery and maintenance capabilities of the APS standard will further expand the portfolio of high-quality PHP applications.”

“It is exciting to see Parallels and Zend extending their partnership,” said Jochen Berger, CTO of intergenia AG. “We believe that this collaboration will enable us to broaden our portfolio with applications built on Zend technology.”