The Borland Software tools subsidiary plans to extend its Delphi Windows development environment to accommodate PHP, Windows Vista and AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML). Two products will be introduced, including Delphi 2007 for Win32, featuring enhanced support for Vista and AJAX, and Delphi for PHP, providing an IDE and open source VCL (visual component library) framework for PHP developers.

"Up until Delphi for PHP, there hasn't been a RAD visual development environment and there's not been a component architecture for PHP that allows you to build reusable components," said David Intersimone, CodeGear vice president of developer relations and chief evangelist.

Featured is a visual drag-and-drop environment for component-based PHP Web application development.

The product provides a RAD environment that writes most of the PHP code for the developer, said a user of the product, Jonathan Benedicto, who uses CodeGear's technology to develop Web applications such as e-commerce systems.

"It's very, very good," Benedicto said. He owns JomiTech, a tools developer in Barrie, Ontario, Canada. The CodeGear product fills a market gap for a graphical tool for PHP development, he said.