Like most OSS software, PHP poses a unique challenge to the traditional software enterprise business model. Because PHP is freely available, it's impossible to technically "sell" it the way one would normally sell commercial software. Similarly, its wide adoption base makes the development of commercial applications almost pointless, as they are often (and quickly) replaced by equivalent--and even better--open-source implementations.

A company whose business revolves around PHP, therefore, must sell "knowledge" and "information". No matter how inexpensive a software system is, it still remains complex to understand and manage, requiring the intervention of "experts". PHP-based businesses can therefore take advantage of this aspect of the language to create a new market in which the goods being sold are the information that is in their possession and in the knowledge that their clients need in order to achieve their goals.

This approach to building a business is not new. Publishing houses have been disseimnating information for hundreds of years, and software consulting firms have been dispensing expertise for hire ever since computers first came into existence. With PHP, however, the entire budget that previously had to be split between the acquisition of software and the acquisition of expertise can now be dedicated exclusively to the latter, resulting in lower costs for the clients and higher profit margins for the vendors.

The goal of this track is to provide an overview of how a company can take advantage of PHP in ways that go beyond the traditional software consultancy.