MANILA, Philippines - As part of ongoing collaborative efforts to ensure that software developers have access to powerful tools that enable them to build more competitive and innovative web applications, Microsoft Philippines and PHP User Group Philippines recently hosted the annual PHP Developers Summit where developers converged to share insights, best practices, new technologies and learn about interoperable tools that will help them build applications across different platforms.

PHP User Group Philippines (PHPUGPH) is a non-profit organization established to provide support for PHP and open-source enthusiasts in the Philippines.  The country’s best technology talents, IT professionals, software developers and students attended the event which promoted the use of PHP and open source on different platforms including Windows.

“Filipino developers don't have much resources, funds and support to do research and unfortunately, they also don't have enough training for them to excel even though Filipino developers are one of the most skilled in the global IT industry. The purpose of the summit is not only to share knowledge about PHP alone but also to inform developers of the good programming practices and other tools that would aid them in their work,” said Cherrie Ann Domingo, president of PHP User Group Philippines.
 
Two topics included in the event that was attended by more than 250 developers, were interoperability and the developer tools available to optimize application performance on various platforms.

“We decided to include those topics because this gives the developers the freedom of having many options and not being stuck in just one technology or platform in their implementation and deployment,” said Domingo.
 
Microsoft Philippines was among the presenters at the event who introduced the latest interoperable tools for cross platform development.  Following through on its commitment to empower Filipino software developers, the company engages the broad developer community to introduce new tools that help them deliver applications that perform efficiently on various platforms.

“Through our interoperability efforts, we’re working with developers so that they can access an extensive set of tools and choose the best option that helps them deliver innovative solutions required by technology users today,” said Microsoft Philippines platform strategy manager Arnie Locsin.

“With interoperable products, Filipino developers can design more useful applications that attract a bigger audience and compete with the best IT talents and companies from around the world.”

One of the tools introduced during the summit was Microsoft Web Platform Installer, a simple and free tool that automates the installation of the Microsoft Web Platform components, as well as PHP tools and programs on Windows Server.

 Another popular presentation was by Ricardo Bahague Jr., National Coordinator of the Computer Professionals Union, who discussed how Windows Cache (http://www.iis.net/expand/wincacheforphp) can be used to improve the performance and increase the speed of PHP applications running on the Windows platform. 

Bahague said, “One way to measure the performance of an application is to see how fast it runs on any platform and this is where Windows Cache Extension can aid developers. The tool can cache opcodes and file content pointers in memory which can improve the application performance.  Any PHP application can make use of the Windows Cache extension without any code modifications.  All you need is to enable the extension and load the application.”

With more people going online, leading to an increase in emerging Web services, interoperability has become critical, because it enables developers to deliver software and applications that a wide audience will find useful. Interoperability also brings cost-effectiveness for customers who can integrate existing systems with new ones.

“This is good news not only for developers like us but also for the companies in the industry because this means flexibility; therefore, you could choose any tool or platform yet you could get the optimized performance from both of them,” said Domingo.

According to Locsin, Microsoft is continuously collaborating with industry partners such as the PHP Users Group Philippines to foster innovation in the local software industry. “We’re confident that Filipino developers will thrive in a competitive atmosphere because this is where their creativity and ingenuity will set them apart. By ensuring a robust software economy, we’re also able to support the development of our national economy,” he said. 

“We will continue to strengthen our interoperability efforts and reach out to more software companies and web developers, because we want to provide them with new options in designing innovative solutions,” Locsin concluded.