Borland Delphi (now a product of Borland's subsidiary, CodeGear) is a software development package created by Borland. The eleventh and latest version, Delphi 2007 supports the Delphi programming language (Object Pascal) and C++ for the 32 bit Microsoft Windows platform, as well as Delphi and C# for the Microsoft .NET platform.
Delphi's most popular use is the development of desktop and enterprise database applications, but as a general-purpose development tool it is capable of, and is used for, most types of development projects.
The Delphi product is distributed as various suites: Personal, Professional, Enterprise (formerly Client/Server) and Architect.
Delphi was one of the first of what came to be known as RAD tools, for Rapid Application Development, when released in 1995 for the 16-bit Windows 3.1. Delphi 2, released a year later, supported 32-bit Windows environments, and a C++ variant, C++ Builder, followed a few years after.
Anders Hejlsberg, the main architect of Delphi and Turbo Pascal, was hired by Microsoft in 1996, where he has since led the design of both the Java dialect J++ and C#. Chuck Jazdzewski, who was chief scientist and architect of Borland's Delphi technology, left Borland and joined Microsoft in 2004. Danny Thorpe, Chief Scientist at that time, likewise left Borland and joined Google in 2005 only to later join Microsoft in 2006.
Delphi for PHP is an IDE for PHP. It provides true RAD functionality. It features Delphi or Visual Basic like form designer, integrated debugger (based on Apache web server). It also includes VCL library ported to PHP. Support for Web 2.0 features like AJAX, makes it a unique IDE.