An Alternative to Zend?

I can't believe I haven't seen this on planet-php, but um... did everyone miss that Project Zero is now running SugarCRM?

Am I the only one that's thinking a non-Zend Engine PHP might be kind of cool? Maybe I'm biased since I use a lot of Jython in my day job scripting The Grinder, but hooking a dynamic language into the JVM is pretty cool. Imagine not having to use tools like memcached 'cause all you need for a cache that's not mission critical is to instantiate a HashTable object.

I definitely hope IBM has plans beyond the commercial WebSphere sMash. More interpreters is definitely a good thing. Hopefully some others will take the cue and get PHP on the DLR (I'm looking at you Liz).