On the Killersoft blog - Random Strings today, there's this opposing look at some of the things that Zend's been doing - things that would get them "coal and switches in their stocking this year".

So here it is -- December. We've got a shiny new PHP 5.1.1, which as been anticipated for weeks, at least. We've also got a zippy new Firefox 1.5 release, another project whose release was fairly well telegraphed and expected for the last month.

And then we've got Zend Studio, a cornerstone of "The PHP Company". After upgrading to PHP 5.1.1 and Firefox 1.5 this week, I was been shocked to discover that Zend Studio 5 and the Zend Studio Firefox Plug-In are both in a state of rectal-cranial inversion: neither Zend Studio 5 or the Firefox Plug-In are expected to support PHP 5.1.1 or Firefox 1.5 until late December/early January.

He notes that the extension claims to work for all Firefoxes above 0.9 and the Studio software for all PHP versions above 5 - but they do neither. And, of course, when he reports these issues, what's the response? "Give us a month."

There's absolutely no excuse for this delay that can be considered acceptable for a company who claims to be "The PHP Company." Perhaps Santa will leave a clue under the tree for these guys.