Microsoft has held the Open Source India Conference and officially announced its plans to promote a bundle of new software developer tools for PHP developers and give them more access to the Windows Azure Services Platform.

Vijay Rajagopalan, Principal Architect, Interoperability Strategy team, Microsoft, confirmed the company's readiness to continue to support an open source cloud that is currently used by business persons and governmental officials. Hosted in Microsoft data centers, Azure is an extensive cloud service platform, and it provides an array of services and an OS. It provides ample ground for developing new software tools and utilities based on the cloud and boosting existing applications. It supports different languages, such as Java, PHP, Python, Ruby and .NET. Also, it supports Eclipse, Visual Studio and other development tools to create Azure-based applications or use any of the Azure elements from other clouds. Azure uses various IT protocols, including, but not limited to HTTP, SOAP, REST and HTML.

In pursuit of maximum cloud platform interchangeability and openness, Microsoft has established cooperation with lots of software developer groups and organizations. Microsoft is exploring four basic elements that make up a foundation for the idea of interoperability: Developer Choice, Data Portability, Deployment and Standards and Ease of Migration.

As of now, the following developer tools supporting open source developers have been presented:

Windows Azure Tools for Eclipse for PHP – a plug-in for PHP specialists who operate the Eclipse environment that is used for building, testing and setting up Azure-based applications.

Windows Azure SDK (Software Development Kits) for PHP version 2.0 facilitates the use of Windows Azure Services and therefore permits PHP developers to implement their applications on a broader scale, regardless of cloud platform types.

Windows Azure Companion (new) Community Technology Preview (CTP) installs and configures  PHP elements and Azure-based applications in a seamless fashion. Though based on PHP, this CTP is helpful in installing any Azure-based open source element.

Windows Azure Command Line Tools for PHP (update) configures PHP-based tools to fit Windows Azure in a simple and user-friendly way.