A new survey provides insights into the use of PHP to create applications in large enterprises and concludes that the availability of developer talent and quality frameworks is key to the success of PHP.

The State of PHP in the Enterprise survey was conducted during May 2012 by UBM TechWeb on behalf of PHP framework provider, Zend.

Of its of 232 business technology decision makers, 50 percent (117) were actively using PHP to build applications and the remaining 50 percent (115) were planning to use PHP in the future. 41 percent of those surveyed work for companies with more than 1000 employees, and nearly 20 percent work for a company with more than 10,000 employees.

The specific roles of the 232 respondents were as follows:

Nearly half of enterprises in the survey use PHP in their business integration applications, while 64 percent use PHP in external applications and 62 percent use for internal apps. 60 percent described their PHP applications as revenue generating, or critical in nature, while only 15 percent described them as being used for non-critical purposes.

For those planning to use PHP in the future, only 13 percent described their planned PHP application as non-critical in nature. The functions of existing PHP apps were also diverse as shown in this chart:

When those actively using PHP (117 respondents) were asked how using PHP compares to their next most-used language an overwhelming 88 percent said PHP enables faster speed of development and 81 percent found it easier to work with the cloud:

 (click to enlarge)

The survey found that the majority of decision-makers are opting to use PHP in order to deliver high-quality applications faster. Sixty percent of respondents said they chose to develop their apps in PHP due to its speed of development. This was even higher, 75 percent, for those who had already deployed their PHP apps.

Availability of programming talent and fast ramp-up time were also high on the list of reasons that PHP was chosen.

Quality of applications and of user experience were the most important goals for application development for those actively using PHP:

 (click to enlarge)

The vast majority of current PHP users, 97 percent, plan to continue using PHP for future application development. Seventy-seven percent of these respondents said they plan to release two or more new PHP applications within the next 12-18 months, and another 21 percent said they intend to release at least one new PHP application. For those evaluating PHP for future usage, 92 percent intend to release at least one application within the next 12 to 18 months.

Eric Bruno, who led the study for UBM TechWeb, concluded:

Our research shows that PHP not only helps development organizations become more efficient and cost-effective, but that it also has direct benefit to end users in terms of quality and time to market. The key to the success of PHP, according to our research, is the availability of talent and quality frameworks to aid in the process.

To which Andi Gutmans, CEO of Zend, responded:

As more companies use PHP to build and deploy diverse applications, Zend will continue to play a key role in empowering our clients to benefit from the rapid and comprehensive approach that PHP can bring to their development organization.”

A webinar hosted by Information Week and Zend  providing an overview of the study and its results on June 28, 2012.

More Information

Zend

The State of PHP in the Enterprise - to download report and for webinar (registration required)

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