A computing platform or digital platform[1] is the environment in which a piece of software is executed. It may be the hardware or the operating system (OS), even a web browser and associated application programming interfaces, or other underlying software, as long as the program code is executed with it. Computing platforms have different abstraction levels, including a computer architecture, an OS, or runtime libraries.[2] A computing platform is the stage on which computer programs can run.
A platform can be seen both as a constraint on the software development process, in that different platforms provide different functionality and restrictions; and as an assistance to the development process, in that they provide low-level functionality ready-made. For example, an OS may be a platform that abstracts the underlying differences in hardware and provides a generic command for saving files or accessing the network.
- 2Operating system examples
Components[edit]
- Love it or loathe it, Facebook is a good example of a platform AND a software product; and it is this duality that helps to explain the differentiation. The Facebook application is a software.
- ERP System Examples for ERP Software Platforms SelectHub Enterprise Resource Planning Enterprise Resource Planning, or ERP, systems are made up of tools intended to facilitate the management of all information that impacts a company’s business decisions.
PC Magazine Tech Encyclopedia Index - Definitions on common technical and computer related terms. Sun's Java and Microsoft's.NET Framework are examples of major software platforms. Duck Creek Technologies is a software organization that offers a piece of software called EXAMPLE Platform. EXAMPLE Platform is insurance policy software. Some competitor software products to EXAMPLE Platform include InsureCert, CaseworksPro, and Velocity. Sun's Java and Microsoft's.NET Framework are examples of major software platforms. See Java EE,.NET Framework, application platform and platform.
Platforms may also include:
- Hardware alone, in the case of small embedded systems. Embedded systems can access hardware directly, without an OS; this is referred to as running on 'bare metal'.
- A browser in the case of web-based software. The browser itself runs on a hardware+OS platform, but this is not relevant to software running within the browser.[3]
- An application, such as a spreadsheet or word processor, which hosts software written in an application-specific scripting language, such as an Excel macro. This can be extended to writing fully-fledged applications with the Microsoft Office suite as a platform.[4]
- Software frameworks that provide ready-made functionality.
- Cloud computing and Platform as a Service. Extending the idea of a software framework, these allow application developers to build software out of components that are hosted not by the developer, but by the provider, with internet communication linking them together.[5] The social networking sites Twitter and Facebook are also considered development platforms.[6][7]
- A virtual machine (VM) such as the Java virtual machine or .NET CLR. Applications are compiled into a format similar to machine code, known as bytecode, which is then executed by the VM.
- A virtualized version of a complete system, including virtualized hardware, OS, software, and storage. These allow, for instance, a typical Windows program to run on what is physically a Mac.
Some architectures have multiple layers, with each layer acting as a platform to the one above it. In general, a component only has to be adapted to the layer immediately beneath it. For instance, a Java program has to be written to use the Java virtual machine (JVM) and associated libraries as a platform but does not have to be adapted to run for the Windows, Linux or Macintosh OS platforms. However, the JVM, the layer beneath the application, does have to be built separately for each OS.[8]
Operating system examples[edit]
Desktop, laptop, server[edit]
- AmigaOS, AmigaOS 4
- FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD
Mobile[edit]
Software frameworks[edit]
- Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW)
- Common Language Infrastructure (CLI)
- Flash
- GNU
- Java platform
- Mozilla Prism, XUL and XULRunner
- Universal Windows Platform
Hardware examples[edit]
Ordered roughly, from more common types to less common types:
- Commodity computing platforms
- Wintel, that is, Intel x86 or compatible personal computer hardware with Windows operating system
- Macintosh, custom Apple Inc. hardware and Classic Mac OS and macOS operating systems, originally 68k-based, then PowerPC-based, now migrated to x86
- ARM architecture based mobile devices
- iPhone smartphones and iPad tablet computers devices running iOS, also from Apple
- Gumstix or Raspberry Pi full function miniature computers with Linux
- Newton devices running the Newton OS, also from Apple
- x86 with Unix-like systems such as Linux or BSD variants
- CP/M computers based on the S-100 bus, maybe the earliest microcomputer platform
- Video game consoles, any variety (PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo)
- 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, that was licensed to manufacturers
- Apple Pippin, a multimedia player platform for video game console development
- RISC processor based machines running Unix variants
- SPARC architecture computers running Solaris or illumos operating systems
- DEC Alphacluster running OpenVMS or Tru64 UNIX
- Midrange computers with their custom operating systems, such as IBM OS/400
- Mainframe computers with their custom operating systems, such as IBMz/OS
- Supercomputer architectures
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^'What I Talk About When I Talk About Platforms'. martinfowler.com. Retrieved 2018-03-18.
- ^'platform'. Free On-line Dictionary of Computing
- ^Andrew Binstock (July 2, 2012). 'Google's Redefinition of the Browser As Platform'. Dr. Dobbs.
- ^Chip Wilson; Alan Josephson. 'Microsoft Office as a Platform for Software + Services'. Microsoft Developer Network.
- ^'What Is PAAS?'. Interoute.
- ^'Twitter Development Platform - Twitter Developers'.
- ^'Facebook Development Platform Launches..' August 15, 2006.
- ^'Platform independence in Java's Byte Code'. Stack Overflow.
External links[edit]
Wikidata has the property:
|
In the next age of man, a platform became something slightly different. Where we used to think of a platform as the underlying computer system, we now probably have to accept the fact that the industry considers a platform to be anything that you can build upon. To be clearer, a platform could be your smartphone i.e. it has its own device form factor and its own ability to interconnect with other software streams, therefore it’s a platform that you can do other things with that were not originally envisaged at the time of its initial design – and this is the important point.
What we learn from Facebook
Love it or loathe it, Facebook is a good example of a platform AND a software product; and it is this duality that helps to explain the differentiation. The Facebook application is a software product, it’s an app. You can log into it online and use it as a web service, or you can download it to your device and log in to a connected app. Crucially though, Facebook is also a platform for other apps.
“The platform element is the exposure of the social graph to external applications which enable a different set of use cases,” writes programming blogger Ben Foster.
We can now program standalone applications without a platform, or perhaps use the web itself as our underlying substrata, but generally speaking we can still say that programming is easier when there is a platform in place.
Tech blogger Jonathan Clarks helps build the argument here, “Platforms are structures that allow multiple products to be built within the same technical framework. Companies invest in platforms in the hope that future products can be developed faster and cheaper, than if they built them stand-alone. Today it is much more important to think of a platform as a business framework. By this I mean a framework that allows multiple business models to be built and supported. For instance, Amazon is an online retail framework. Amazon started by selling books. Over time they have expanded to selling all sorts of other things. Apple iTunes started by selling tracks and now uses the same framework to sell videos.”
Aggrandizing swagger & spin
So why all this postulating and clarification? Well okay this week sees the CeBit technical exhibition and conference hosted in Hannover, Germany. Using the show as a product unveiling platform (pun intended) this year was Software AG. The firm has launched its Digital Business Platform which it says operates “at the interface” between real-time business operations and changing customer and market requirements. Alarm bells start ringing immediately i.e. is this really a platform, or is the firm rebranding some of its existing software with a bit of aggrandizing swagger and spin?
Software AG CTO Wolfram Jost insists that, “The Digital Business Platform provides the foundation necessary to develop and deploy differentiating business applications, developed together with the business departments, in short and easily foreseeable release cycles. Traditional packaged applications are not designed for this type of development approach.”
So what Jost is saying is that software PRODUCTS (i.e. applications) come with predefined business logic that narrows their ultimate breadth of scope. Conversely then, PLATFORMS separate out the logic functions of applications so that an IT structure can be built for change. If Software AG’s argument holds water, then a firm’s application platform can be doing something markedly different five years after it was firm laid down. Kind of like the Amazon and iTunes examples.
Back at the early dawn of prehistory, we used to reserve our use of the word platform to denote a complete software programming development environment and underlying subsystem..
The elements of logic here include:
- Integration logic
- Process logic
- Decision logic (including big data analytics)
“Platform beats a product every time,' says Jost -- and by this he means that firms should approach software applications that they may only end up using for say a couple of years in their initial form. “Software application development must evolve to reach a new level of adaptive applications that can be modified and adjusted (very often rapidly). This is because no single software vendor can foresee the business logic of a customer company for more than a couple of years,” he said.
Software AG says that its ‘platform’ allows fast and cost effective development and deployment of a new type of customer facing, front office business application. It also provides an approach to designing and implementing the flexible and cost effective IT architectures needed to support these adaptive applications.
According to a press launch statement, “The Digital Business Platform is therefore of interest to many departments within the enterprise. From the CIO implementing an optimal, cost effective and flexible IT architecture to departmental business managers who need to quickly develop adaptive applications at the individual, departmental or divisional levels.”
So there is evidently a difference between a (software) product and a platform – and there is evidently a new definition of what we should consider a technology platform to be. Software has now moved from its previous ‘proven’ mode where it was stable, certain, systematic and mostly predictable to a new state of ‘agile’ where it is flexible, uncertain, exploratory and opportunistic. There’s still plenty of industry spin associated with the term platform, but digitization is driving home some new truths. Change is constant, so make plans to change plans.
Editorial disclosure: Software AG paid for most of Adrian Bridgwater's travel expenses to attend CeBit 2015.
'>Back at the early dawn of prehistory, we used to reserve our use of the word platform to denote a complete software programming development environment and underlying subsystem with language, runtime, components and all associated libraries and binaries. The result of using a platform (Microsoft .NET or Java for example) was a software application, which in later years even your grandmother would start to call “an app” – and then the Earth cooled.
In the next age of man, a platform became something slightly different. Where we used to think of a platform as the underlying computer system, we now probably have to accept the fact that the industry considers a platform to be anything that you can build upon. To be clearer, a platform could be your smartphone i.e. it has its own device form factor and its own ability to interconnect with other software streams, therefore it’s a platform that you can do other things with that were not originally envisaged at the time of its initial design – and this is the important point.
Usb microscope driver windows 10. What we learn from Facebook
Love it or loathe it, Facebook is a good example of a platform AND a software product; and it is this duality that helps to explain the differentiation. The Facebook application is a software product, it’s an app. You can log into it online and use it as a web service, or you can download it to your device and log in to a connected app. Crucially though, Facebook is also a platform for other apps.
“The platform element is the exposure of the social graph to external applications which enable a different set of use cases,” writes programming blogger Ben Foster.
We can now program standalone applications without a platform, or perhaps use the web itself as our underlying substrata, but generally speaking we can still say that programming is easier when there is a platform in place.
Tech blogger Jonathan Clarks helps build the argument here, “Platforms are structures that allow multiple products to be built within the same technical framework. Companies invest in platforms in the hope that future products can be developed faster and cheaper, than if they built them stand-alone. Today it is much more important to think of a platform as a business framework. By this I mean a framework that allows multiple business models to be built and supported. For instance, Amazon is an online retail framework. Amazon started by selling books. Over time they have expanded to selling all sorts of other things. Apple iTunes started by selling tracks and now uses the same framework to sell videos.”
Aggrandizing swagger & spin
So why all this postulating and clarification? Well okay this week sees the CeBit technical exhibition and conference hosted in Hannover, Germany. Using the show as a product unveiling platform (pun intended) this year was Software AG. The firm has launched its Digital Business Platform which it says operates “at the interface” between real-time business operations and changing customer and market requirements. Alarm bells start ringing immediately i.e. is this really a platform, or is the firm rebranding some of its existing software with a bit of aggrandizing swagger and spin?
Software AG CTO Wolfram Jost insists that, “The Digital Business Platform provides the foundation necessary to develop and deploy differentiating business applications, developed together with the business departments, in short and easily foreseeable release cycles. Traditional packaged applications are not designed for this type of development approach.”
So what Jost is saying is that software PRODUCTS (i.e. applications) come with predefined business logic that narrows their ultimate breadth of scope. Conversely then, PLATFORMS separate out the logic functions of applications so that an IT structure can be built for change. If Software AG’s argument holds water, then a firm’s application platform can be doing something markedly different five years after it was firm laid down. Kind of like the Amazon and iTunes examples.
Back at the early dawn of prehistory, we used to reserve our use of the word platform to denote a complete software programming development environment and underlying subsystem..
The elements of logic here include:
- Integration logic
- Process logic
- Decision logic (including big data analytics)
“Platform beats a product every time,' says Jost -- and by this he means that firms should approach software applications that they may only end up using for say a couple of years in their initial form. “Software application development must evolve to reach a new level of adaptive applications that can be modified and adjusted (very often rapidly). This is because no single software vendor can foresee the business logic of a customer company for more than a couple of years,” he said.
Software AG says that its ‘platform’ allows fast and cost effective development and deployment of a new type of customer facing, front office business application. It also provides an approach to designing and implementing the flexible and cost effective IT architectures needed to support these adaptive applications.
It Platforms Example
According to a press launch statement, “The Digital Business Platform is therefore of interest to many departments within the enterprise. From the CIO implementing an optimal, cost effective and flexible IT architecture to departmental business managers who need to quickly develop adaptive applications at the individual, departmental or divisional levels.”
So there is evidently a difference between a (software) product and a platform – and there is evidently a new definition of what we should consider a technology platform to be. Software has now moved from its previous ‘proven’ mode where it was stable, certain, systematic and mostly predictable to a new state of ‘agile’ where it is flexible, uncertain, exploratory and opportunistic. There’s still plenty of industry spin associated with the term platform, but digitization is driving home some new truths. Change is constant, so make plans to change plans.
Types Of Platforms For Software
Editorial disclosure: Software AG paid for most of Adrian Bridgwater's travel expenses to attend CeBit 2015.