Zend sets up shop in U.S.

Zend Technologies, which makes open-source development tools, on Monday announced it has secured $8 million in third-round venture funding and will establish U.S. headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. The Israel-based company is setting up the office to expand the company's sales efforts to U.S. corporations and to build closer ties with software partners, said Doron Gerstel, the company's co-founder and chief executive.

Zend also said that last week it released tools based on version 5 of PHP, the open-source scripting language for building Web applications. Zend builds a line of proprietary application development and deployment tools based on the scripting language. The new edition of PHP is designed to generate more-robust Web business applications, according to the company. The update makes it easier for programmers to work with XML data and build Web services software components.