Through this new partnership, the companies say they will deliver product interoperability and integration, define packaging and distribution standards and pursue joint marketing initiatives.

Zend products will be certified with Parallels' recently launched Application Packaging Standard, a new application packaging format designed to help easily and quickly implement software as a service. Using the APS standard, hosting providers will be able to configure technology stacks based on Zend products to deliver premium PHP solutions for operating business-critical web applications, says Parallels.

"The APS standard is already supported by more than 100 PHP applications for everything from blogging and collaboration to content management, e-commerce and CRM," says Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels. "The Parallels-Zend partnership advances the web hosting industry by helping service providers deliver a greater variety of professional PHP applications and by growing the channel for PHP application vendors."

Zend and Parallels will deliver an APS-compliant Zend Framework and an updated version of Zend Optimizer later this quarter. Over time, the companies plan to release new versions of all Zend products that support the APS standard.

Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Zend says it is the leading provider of products and services for developing, deploying and managing business-critical PHP applications. According to the company, PHP is currently used by more than 20 million websites and Zend's family of products have been deployed by more than 25,000 companies worldwide.

This partnership one of many announced during the Parallels Summit 2008 (parallels.com/summit) last week. Other partnership announcements included deals with Rack-Soft, Solar VTG, emerion WebHosting GmbH and Absolute Performance.