Zend's latest survey of PHP developers reveals that open standards, have become the norm for mobile app development, and that meeting the frequent release cycles mobile apps require is frequently a problem. A growing number of PHP devs intend to deploy to the cloud.

Zend has produced an infographic to summarize the findings of its third Zend Pulse Survey. Nearly 5,000 developers responded to the survey and less than a quarter were independent developers:

The survey found that mobile apps are rapidly becoming the primary focus for development teams. When asked whether they are working on mobile apps this year, 91% of PHP developers confirmed that they are, up from 66% a year ago. Moreover, 89% of developers working on mobile apps could identify the specific server-side capabilities they require, indicating knowledge of an API-based architectural model for mobile apps.

Another key finding is that open standards, which simplify app development across multiple platforms, have become the norm. Asked how they intended to deliver content and services to their mobile audience, 79% of developers selected web apps and open standards such as HTML5.

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The survey highlighted that although the proliferation of mobile device types and the need for rapid app iterations has resulted in more frequent release cycles, development and operations teams are struggling to meet this requirement. 87% of developers said they have experienced delays in moving their app from development to production because of inconsistent environments across development, test and production, lack of automation in the application deployment process, and difficulty of collaboration between development and operations.

The survey also found that 90% of developers have worked weekends, vacations and holidays because of production emergencies and when asked what percent of their time developers spend on new functionality, 80% of developers identified that at least a quarter of their work time is spent resolving issues, with 43% of developers saying that troubleshooting consumes more than half of their available time.

The survey additionally asked a question about cloud popularity. A large and growing number of developers indicated that they intend to deploy to the cloud, with Amazon Web Services the most popular choice, at 51%; Google Compute holding 21% of intent, and Rackspace in third place with 14% of intended application deployments.