A2 Hosting says Zend Framework is a thoroughly tested PHP component library, created to aid in the development of modern Web 2.0 applications and a variety of other web services.

Zend hosting is currently available in all shared reseller and semi-dedicated hosting packages, while dedicated and VPS hosting customers can install Zend Framework themselves. A2 Hosting launched its VPS packages in January.

A2 Hosting says some of the benefits to this new launch include AJAX support, easy organization and access to data formats necessary for Web 2.0 applications, access to an object-oriented PHP 5 class library created around top PHP practices and the use of a tested and stable framework.

"A2 Hosting has always taken great pride in their ability to support the latest in PHP hosting technology," says Bradford Cottel, spokesperson for Zend Technologies. "Their release and support of Zend Framework provides significant value to the growing numbers of developers looking to create modern web applications based on open source, industry standard technologies."

Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Zend Technologies 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.

Earlier this week, Zend announced it is collaborating with Parallels on solutions that will enable web hosts to deliver PHP applications through Parallels' control panel and server virtualization offerings.