Pune: NIIT, leading Global Talent Development Corporation and Asia’s largest IT trainer, today announced a strategic alliance with Zend Technologies, USA the leading provider of software and services for developing, deploying and managing business-critical PHP applications for on-premise and cloud computing environments. Under this partnership, NIIT will offer training programs on PHP and Zend Framework to create a talent pool of high-quality PHP developers and Zend Certified Engineers.

Today, PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) runs 35 percent of the world’s Web sites including- Facebook, Yahoo and is the fastest growing language for building dynamic Web applications with a strong community of over 4.5 million developers worldwide. The PHP community has produced some of the most innovative Internet companies and technologies on the web, and is clearly a technology for the future. Deployed at more than 35,000 companies worldwide, the Zend family of PHP software products delivers a comprehensive solution supporting the entire application lifecycle.

With an increasing number of companies choosing PHP as their platform for building Web applications, there is a rising demand for skilled PHP professionals. Some of the world’s most popular social networks and applications, like Facebook, Drupal, WordPress, Yahoo and Magento were built on PHP. Organizations such as AT&T, GE, France Telecom/Orange, Fiat Automotive, Cisco, Lufthansa and NYSE Euronext rely on Zend PHP solutions for their business-critical Web applications.

As per IDC, worldwide revenue from Open Source Software (OSS) will grow at a 22.4% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to reach $8.1 billion by 2013. Titled – ‘Worldwide Open Source Software 2009- 2013 Forecast’ by IDC, the report highlights the trend that OSS is increasingly becoming a part of the enterprise software strategy of leading businesses and is seeing mainstream adoption at a strong pace. This promises great career opportunities for developers working on PHP to build dynamic Web applications aligned to the needs of the industry.

Zend PHP Certification is the only recognized PHP certification in the world. The NIIT-Zend partnership marks the first alliance forged by Zend with a partner to both deliver its training, and to collaborate on the delivery of its PHP Certification program.

Mr. Vijay K Thadani, Chief Executive Officer, NIIT Limited, said, “NIIT has always been a pioneer at embracing new technology. Our relationship with Zend Technologies continues our tradition of bringing the most advanced offerings to students and professionals in India. Our alliance with Zend will enable the IT industry to meet the growing demand for PHP professionals, skilled at building dynamic Web applications using this platform.”

Mr. Siddhartha Agarwal, Vice President, Americas and Emerging Markets Field Operations, Zend Technologies, said, “Zend recognises India as a key market for developing and nurturing talent to build applications using PHP as the programming language. Our alliance with NIIT will create a large talent pool of high-quality PHP developers and Zend Certified Engineers. This talent pool will help Indian companies and system integrators to rapidly build mission-critical Web applications for local Indian and offshore projects. This is the first and the largest program of its kind for PHP talent development.”

As part of this tie-up, Zend is providing NIIT with its world-leading training curriculum for PHP, Zend Framework, and Zend software product training. Zend and NIIT will customize the content for absorption within the Indian market and deliver it through its network of training centres. Zend’s industry-acclaimed Certification program (Zend Certified Engineer for PHP 5.3 and Zend Certified Engineer for Zend Framework) will be leveraged by NIIT to certify PHP programmers, thus creating a talent pool for trained PHP professionals in the country.

The program will be initially offered in India, and subsequently launched in other parts of the Asia-Pacific region and other emerging markets.