New Survey Reveals State of PHP Adoption in the Enterprise

Sixty Percent of Companies Using PHP Applications to Manage Critical Business Processes 

Cupertino, Calif. – June 12, 2012 - Zend, the PHP Company, and UBM TechWeb announced the release of the “State of PHP in the Enterprise” survey, the first significant survey of IT decision-makers that measures usage of the PHP language to create applications in large enterprises. Administered by UBM TechWeb, a global leader in business technology media, the survey focuses on how enterprise director-level and executive decision-makers are using or planning to use PHP. The findings are summarized in an executive report now available for free at www.zend.com/enterprise.

Key Findings
The survey reveals that PHP is being used broadly to develop and run diverse and business-critical applications. The drivers of increased PHP adoption include faster development cycles when compared to other languages, a widely available talent pool, increased efficiency in the application development process, and ease of use. Of those surveyed, 97 percent of organizations that are using PHP plan to expand their usage and start additional PHP projects in the next 12-18 months.

Pervasive and Diverse Adoption
Of the decision-makers surveyed, half are actively using PHP, and the remaining half plan to use PHP in the near future. The survey found a high prevalence of PHP in larger companies; nearly half of the IT decision-makers surveyed worked for companies that had 500 or more employees, while approximately 20 percent represented enterprises with more than 10,000 people. 

The study found that PHP has evolved from its origins as a specific use language, and is now actively used to build applications of all shapes and sizes. Nearly half of enterprises use PHP in their business integration applications, while 64 percent use PHP in external applications and 62 percent use for internal apps. 

The functions of existing PHP apps were also diverse, including content management (50 percent of respondents), database/system administration (46 percent), data visualization (33 percent), financial apps (28 percent), e-commerce (25 percent), and human resources (20 percent).

Sixty Percent of Companies using PHP for Business-Critical Purposes

When asked to describe the importance of the PHP apps they have or plan to have, 60 percent of decision-makers reported that their PHP applications are revenue-generating or critical in nature. This breaks down as 21 percent of users describing their apps as directly revenue-generating, while 25 percent and 14 percent of users respectively described their PHP applications as being responsible for a critical internal or external business process. It is clear that decision-makers rely on PHP to power business-critical applications that directly impact their company’s bottom line.

Why is PHP So Pervasive?

When decision-makers with PHP apps were specifically asked how using PHP compares to their next most-used language: 
 

• 88 percent said PHP enables faster speed of development.
• 81 percent found it easier to work with the cloud.
• 79 percent experienced a faster ramp-up time for new developers.
• 76 percent found administration easier.
• 65 percent were able to improve performance.
• 60 percent or more found that resolution of production issues, availability of talent and frameworks were better than their next most-used language.

The survey found that the majority of decision-makers are opting to use PHP in order to deliver high-quality applications faster. Just over sixty percent of respondents said they chose to develop their apps in PHP due to its speed of development. This was even higher, 74 percent, for those who had already deployed their PHP apps. Availability of programming talent and fast ramp-up time were also high on the list of reasons that PHP was chosen.

Continued PHP Growth

The vast majority of current PHP users, 97 percent, plan to continue using PHP for future application development. Seventy-seven percent of these respondents said they plan to release two or more new PHP applications within the next 12-18 months, and another 21 percent said they intend to release at least one new PHP application. For those evaluating PHP for future usage, 92 percent intend to release at least one application within the next 12 to 18 months. 

“This study clearly shows that PHP is no longer a boutique language, and is actively used in critical applications at large enterprises around the globe,” said Eric Bruno, the enterprise architect and industry analyst who led the study for UBM TechWeb. “Clearly, enterprises agree that using PHP for their apps directly improves revenue, customer satisfaction and overall process efficiency more than any other enterprise language today.”

“It’s no surprise to Zend that this study found pervasive usage of PHP in larger companies,” said Andi Gutmans, CEO of Zend. “Our clients, including BNP Paribas, NYSE Euronext and Bell Helicopter, trust Zend to help them quickly release, manage and scale their PHP applications. As more companies use PHP to build and deploy diverse applications, Zend will continue to play a key role in empowering our clients to benefit from the rapid and comprehensive approach that PHP can bring to their development organization.”

BNP Paribas, one of the world’s leading banks, has implemented more than 700 tools and applications using PHP. “We wanted to establish an agile, iterative development environment,” said Yannic Mahé, audit manager within the BNP Paribas IT organization. “Our developers are fully satisfied with the PHP language and Zend’s PHP solutions. For certain projects, PHP has enabled them to dramatically shorten the development cycle and accelerate application delivery compared with their previous experiences using Java.” 

For more information on Zend’s PHP solutions for large enterprises, please visit: www.zend.com 

InformationWeek and Zend will host a webinar providing an overview of the “State of PHP in the Enterprise” study and its results on June 28th, 2012. To attend the webinar, please visit: https://www.techwebonlineevents.com/ars/eventregistration.do?mode=eventreg&F=1004580&K=CAA1CC/ 

About Zend Technologies 
Zend partners with businesses to rapidly deliver modern apps across mobile and cloud. Founded in 1999, Zend helped establish the PHP language, which today runs more than one-third of the world’s Web sites. Today, Zend is the leading provider of software and services for developing, deploying and managing business-critical applications in PHP. Zend’s award-winning PHP solutions including Zend Server and Zend Studio are deployed at more than 40,000 companies, including NYSE Euronext, BNP Paribas, Bell Helicopter, France Telecom and other leading brands worldwide. Learn more at www.zend.com.

About UBM TechWeb (http://www.ubmtechweb.com)
UBM TechWeb, the global leader in technology media and professional information, enables people and organizations to harness the transformative power of technology. Through its three core businesses—media solutions, marketing services and paid content—UBM TechWeb produces the most respected and consumed brands and media applications in the technology market. More than 14.5 million business and technology professionals (CIOs and IT managers, Web and digital professionals, software developers, government decision-makers and telecom providers) actively engage in UBM TechWeb's communities and information resources monthly. UBM TechWeb brands include global face-to-face events such as Interop, Web 2.0, Black Hat and Enterprise Connect; award-winning online resources such as InformationWeek.com, Light Reading and Network Computing; and market-leading magazines InformationWeek, Wall Street & Technology and Advanced Trading. UBM TechWeb is part of UBM plc, a global provider of news distribution and specialist information services with a market capitalization of more than $2.5 billion.