(Maybe more appropriately named UNIX vs. NT)

What is PHP?
PHP is a server-side, cross-platform, HTML embedded scripting language.

Think of it as this: PHP is a TOOL. With it you can create dynamic web pages. PHP-enabled web pages are the same as regular HTML pages. Create and edit PHP pages as you would normally create regular HTML pages.

Drop PHP dynamic delivery into a page with a simple <?php to start the tag and ?> to close. It's that easy, since our servers already have full support for PHP4 and the associated functionality that comes with it. Just write your pages, drop in PHP and go. 

PHP-enabled files are a whole new family of magical tags that let you do all sorts of things. Just create your .php3 files and put them in your directory and the server will parse them for you.

Here are some of the reasons to switch:

1) UNIX is more reliable.  Here are some articles backing this up.

•         UNIX vs. NT 4.0 Service Pack 3 from an experienced user:

        http://www.zdnet.com/sr/columns/sjvn/980528.html

•         UNIX vs. NT 5.0 with detailed comparison:

        http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/content/inwk/0513/305389.html

2) MySQL is a very fast Database System.  This page will allow someone to compare MySQL with a bunch of other database systems.

http://www.mysql.com/benchmark.html

3) MySQL is very functional.  This page allows comparisons of the different functions between MySQL and other Database Systems.

http://www.mysql.com/crash-me-choose.htmy

4)  PHP 4.0 is designed to be fast and was written to do database work. PHP 4.0 is a server side HTML embedded scripting language, meaning that PHP is embedded in the HTML files and the server does the work of translating the PHP 4.0.  

This means that it is totally platform  and browser independent. [it is possible to make things platform and browser independent with Microsoft ASP (Active Server Pages) having the server do all the compiling, but PHP 4.0 is backed up with UNIX reliability and Database speed; ASP is not quicker than PHP 4.0].  PHP 4.0 is reliable and fast. 

You can look here for further information on PHP 4.0: http://www.php.net

 PHP can be configured as an Apache module or CGI program, and has the flavor of a poor man's Cold Fusion. When somebody accesses an HTML page with embedded PHP commands, the server passes the page through the PHP module, where it is interpreted. 

PHP, configured as an Apache module, eliminates the big performance hit associated with plain CGI because the server no longer has to spawn a new process to generate a page -- the interpreter built into the Apache server process handles everything. You can also run PHP with other servers, compiled as a standalone application; see the PHP documentation for more information. Remember, however, that compiling PHP to run as an external CGI cancels many of its benefits, as the server must spawn a separate process for each connection. In this case, the overhead of PHP is still much lower than that of Perl, so the performance should still be better for small to medium-sized applications.