ASP: Active Server Pages

Vendor: Microsoft

Platform: IIS

ASP supports multiple programming languages, the most commonly used is VBScript. It has been around for-ever (nearly) and is evolving into Microsoft's dotNet.

Why do we use ASP & IIS?: In New Zealand, ASP with IIS is still the most commonly used web server technology.

PHP: Hypertext Pre Processor

Vendor: Open Source

Platform: Apache, IIS

PHP is a widely-used and rapidly growing general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development which can be embedded into HTML to develop dynamic web pages.

Why do we use PHP & Apache?: Apache servers are faster and hosting is cheaper, worldwide Apache servers are the most commonly used.

Access

Vendor: Microsoft

Great low cost solution for websites that have small size and small connection requirements, but look out if the number of records gets large and the number of concurrent connections is more that just a few.

SQL server

Vendor: Microsoft

High end database with very good language support, but expensive to host in.

mySQL

Vendor: Open Source

Robust, and economical (they don't come more economical than free!) PHP's tight integration with mySQL allows for quick development times and robust websites.