A couple of weeks ago, Zend finally released their long awaited product line, including much needed products, such as a stable, quality Cache as well as an encoder that allows you to encrypt and distribute your code. But are these products all that they're hyped to be? Are they worth their price tags? Over the next couple of weeks I will be offering you my reviews of the different Zend products, the Zend Launchpad, the Zend Cache, the Zend Encoder and the Zend IDE.

This week I will cover the Zend Encoder, a program which allows for you to distribute encoded versions of your software, therefore protecting your intellectual property and making sure that your licenses are upheld. First I'll go over exactly what the encoder does and a little bit of how it works, and then I'll move on to cover the open source alternative(s) and finally, give my humble opinion on the product.