The state of Israel turns 60 today and I've seen all kinds of coverage on TV/newspapers/web. From a technology point of view there are a bunch of things that have come from that tiny country, but for this short blog post I'm going to highlight three vendor/technologies in particular.

ICQ: I couldn't do my job without instant messaging today. If you're like me than you have ICQ to thank. Israeli based Mirabilis launched ICQ -- the first 'real' internet wide instant messaging app - in 1996. AOL bought them out in in 1998 for $407 million and to this day in the US, AOL is still arguably the largest IM network.

Check Point : A number of different individuals 'claim' to have invented/pioneered the firewall, but it was Check Point that deserves a lot of credit and is the vendor that really took it main stream. Remember the mid 90's ? If you wanted a firewall you got Check Point, there really was no other viable choice.

Zend : While Zend did not invent PHP (and certainly PHP was popular without Zend), it is Zend that has become the leading voice commercially for PHP on a global basis. Tens of millions of websites (including InternetNews.com) use Zend developed PHP code in some way shape or form.

So if you use instant messaging, PHP or have a firewall, give thanks to the state of Israel today.