What are Runtime Converter "enterprise support" options?
There have been some questions about the Runtime Converter's enterprise support options, as mentioned on our website. To start off, we don't have a team of developers to do full time work on your project. Any company that is converting PHP to Java will need to hire Java engineers to work on the project after it is converted. We aim to provide a project that "works" out of the box, but there are still many features that need development before that can happen on a large project.
What the Runtime Converter offers in terms of "enterprise support" is the ability to do specific work on the converter and assosiated "runtime library" that will save time on the conversion. The project roadmap probably encompasses all the features that one could ask for, but they are done on a longer timeline. For example, one might find that a project makes significant use of some obscure (or not so obscure) feature that we don't support yet. It will be more efficient for us to develop that feature and add it to the converter than it will for you to fix it in five thousand places.
Another example relates to the native element of the "runtime library" that the converted product uses. We embed PHP itself to provide the vast majority of the standard library functions. To achieve the fullest Java conversion, one will want that all functions be implemented in Java. We can, for example, add native overrides for certain functions or extensions. A great example is are the PDO and CURL extensions, used for database access and API calls. It is much easier to write these functions than it would be to restructure an entire application to use Hibernate or JDBC. Instead, implement the PDO functions and classes as JDBC proxy and leave your code as it is.
Additionally, the Runtime Converter operates on a dual pricing model. We wanted to offer online conversions to anyone at a reasonable price, but the project can only be funded by much more expensive "enterprise conversions". Conversions below a certain size threshold deemed to be "non-enterprise" are billed via the online site php2java.com. If they don't like the conversion, there is a 30-day money back garunetee, but thats about it. Conversions above the "enterprise" threshold are individually negotiated prices, along with hourly rates for any specific consulting or support requests.
