Zend Certification for PHP 5: It's OFFICIAL!

Nothing in Silicon Valley is official until the press release has been circulated. Here is the complete press release.

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ZEND TECHNOLOGIES ANNOUNCES PHP 5 CERTIFICATION

CUPERTINO, CA – September 12, 2006 – Zend Technologies, Inc., the PHP company, today announced the availability of Zend PHP Certification for PHP 5, enabling developers to test and certify their expertise in new areas such as object oriented PHP programming, creating and using web-services with PHP, as well as PHP security.

“We see broad adoption of PHP 5.x as the preferred version of PHP for professional software development,” said Andi Gutmans, co-founder and Vice President, Technology at Zend Technologies. “We support this trend with updates to all of our tools to include full support for PHP 5. Upgrading our certification program is a logical next step.”

Introduced in July 2004, the Zend PHP Certification Program has become the industry standard certification for PHP. More than 1,500 software developers worldwide have passed the certification exam and can call themselves “Zend Certified Engineers”. By doing so, they have increased their professional opportunities in the PHP market. “The fact that I have become a Zend Certified Engineer has given me much more credibility in the workplace,” said Bob Carnaghi of Webpointmorpheus, a web design firm.

Zend PHP 5 Certification was the result of extensive communication with the Zend Certified Engineer community to determine how the program can be most useful for PHP developers. Some of the community’s top domain experts have contributed certification questions and reviewed the program to ensure that it is complete and tests for relevant skills. Becoming a Zend Certified Engineer gives developers an edge in today’s competitive technology market. Certification also helps enterprise management quickly qualify new hires, and keep current development teams knowledgeable about the latest technology.

With more than 3,500 test centers, developers around the globe can take the certification exam using specially configured computers. The certification is designed to test a developer’s level of PHP knowledge based on questions that reflect real-world scenarios. Specific topics covered include application design and theory, PHP basics, PHP 4/5 differences, as well as object-oriented PHP, security, XML and web services. Once a developer is certified for a specific version of PHP, the certification will never expire.

PHP is used in over 22 million web sites and continues to gain popularity. With the introduction of version 5, PHP has the scalability, robustness, integration and support for web standards to make it the perfect fit for creating and deploying modern web applications. These applications foster rich interaction and community, and are changing the way companies interact with their customers, suppliers and other stakeholders.

Zend PHP 5 Certification will be highlighted during the upcoming annual Zend/PHP Conference. At this conference, slated for October 31-November 2, 2006, attendees will be able to participate in Training and Certification sessions hosted by Zend. The program will also include daily keynote addresses, technical and business sessions, an exhibit hall, the Framework Pavilion, and evening networking activities.