Andi Gutmans has posted about a new feature that will be included in any new (or upgraded) IBM i system - a full "Zend web stack" of their products and services.

The relationship with the IBM i team started in 2005. I was deeply involved in forming the partnership and at the time did a lot of the research to better understand the opportunity. [...] There were several solutions at the time which enabled IBM i customers to Web-enable their applications. However, PHP was of biggest interest to the community for many reasons.

PHP was a good fit because of the large pool of PHP developers already on hand, its cross-platform nature, low entry (learning) level and that it provides easy access (through frameworks and the like) to more advanced web technologies.

I am very much looking forward to continuing our close collaboration with the team at IBM who had the foresight of really pushing this hard over the past few years and, with that, not only making PHP on the IBM i a reality but a first-class citizen.