WebSmart PHP, BCD Software’s new software for creating web-based PHP applications that run on i5/OS and other platforms, is downloadable as a beta release. Keen interest is being seen from the iSeries community.

Essentially used for developing web-based software applications, the PHP Hypertext Pre-processor is a programming language enabling web developers to create dynamic content that interacts with databases.

BCD announced WebSmart PHP during the 2007 COMMON conference in Anaheim, California, and with its development partner, Excel Systems, delivered the product in June.

“This multiman-year PHP web application development tool project is now being put into the hands of the System i programming community,” says Eric Figura, BCD’s director of sales and marketing. “Since WebSmart PHP was announced, we’ve received over 200 beta requests ( http://www.bcdsoftware.com/wsphp ), and hundreds of other requests for more information.”

“We’ve seen good interest in the UK and Europe,” says Figura. “While 80% of press coverage for the WebSmart PHP beta release has been out of North America, we’ve had 20% of beta download requests from the UK and the rest of Europe.” BCD expects the UK percentage to increase. “We anticipate official release to be September/October,” he says.

Sold in the UK through SoftLanding Europe (aka Unicom), costs are likely to be £2-3,000 for a two seat licence and £1,000-1,300 for each additional seat, with a site licence (unlimited seats) somewhere between £7-9,000, says Paul Stevens, sales manager, SoftLanding Europe. There will also be promotional deals involving WebSmart PHP and other products, such as Nexus, Clover, SmartCharts, and Catapult.

Stevens says: “PHP is a well-established product and widely used for web application development, so I’ve been encouraged by the initial interest in WebSmart PHP. We’ve had many clients requesting beta software and information sheets. Activity in WebSmart itself continues to grow in the UK especially for those clients wanting to modernise their legacy systems and for those clients who prefer to generate ILE to that of PHP.”

While WebSmart PHP-developed applications will run on multiple platforms, the development environment’s key strength is developing PHP applications for System i. It’ll bring System i-specific features to support deployment on the platform, including libraries and library lists, and integration with RPG and other ILE applications. It will also include templates for using DB2 SQL or record-level access to the DB2/400 database.

“We don't consider WebSmart PHP as a departure from our direction as our mission is System i modernisation,” says Figura. “WebSmart PHP uses the same IDE as our ILE version, specially customised and extended for PHP. We’ve also seen good interest from existing WebSmart ILE accounts wanting to do PHP, and multi-platform data access from one IDE. We’re also getting good interest from System i accounts who want a complete integrated modernisation suite. They’re finding that solution with our products WebSmart, Nexus Portal, Clover Query, SmartCharts and Catapult. All these systems integrate allowing an organisation to modernise both their applications and business processes. Whenever you can have one system process automatically feed another process you are increasing the ROI for that organisation. WebSmart PHP simply builds on that integration.”

“We see WebSmart PHP making a nice impact in the System i community. From our experience with WebSmart ILE, we see WebSmart PHP accounts implementing it along with Nexus Portal for application frameworks, added security, web menus, executive dashboards, ECM, spool-file access and user tools. Nexus is included licence-free with annual maintenance. WebSmart PHP clients will also receive SmartCharts with over 150 Flash charts, graphs, gauges all license-free and no paid maintenance. SmartCharts integrates with both WebSmart PHP and Nexus Portal. Both of these add-on solutions offer significant value-add.

“IBM is pleased to see BCD support PHP in its WebSmart solution for the System i and multi-platforms, demonstrating again that it is a progressive System i solution provider. Like BCD, IBM is committed to helping System i customers and solution providers innovate their businesses easily and cost-effectively and we look forward to working with BCD in growing the System i PHP community,” says Elaine Lennox, VP System i marketing, IBM.

The PHP scripting language is becoming a key web development language on System i. Since IBM announced its partnership with Zend Technologies in 2006 and brought Zend Core for i5/OS to market, System i shops have started playing with PHP and deploying PHP-based web applications on their midrange servers. Zend provides products, such as Zend Core, and services for developing, deploying, and managing PHP applications.

“We’re pleased to have BCD support PHP in the System i marketplace with its WebSmart PHP solution,” says Jim Dillard, Zend IBM alliance manager. “Those using PHP realise it’s a fast, light, and scalable language.”

--Frank Booty, industry reporter.