Platforms
A platform is a combination of hardware and software used to run software applications. A platform can be described simply as an operating system or computer architecture, or it could be the combination of both (an example of a common platform is Microsoft Windows running on the x86 architecture). Other well-known desktop computer platforms include Linux/Unix and Mac OS X (both of which are themselves cross-platform). There are, however, many devices such as mobile phones that are also effectively computer platforms but less commonly thought about in that way. Application software can be written to depend on the features of a particular platform—either the hardware, operating system, or virtual machine it runs on. The Java platform is a virtual machine platform which runs on many operating systems and hardware types, and is a common platform for software to be written for.
Read more about this topic: Cross-platform
Famous quotes containing the word platforms:
“The personal things should be left out of platforms at conventions .... You can argue yourself blue in the face, and you’re not going to change each other’s minds. It’s a waste of your time and my time.”
—Barbara Bush (b. 1925)
“I would rather be known as an advocate of equal suffrage than to speak every night on the best-paying platforms in the United States and ignore it.”
—Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919)