client platform

client platform

A family of desktop and laptop computers comprising the hardware and operating system. For example, the Windows client platform refers to x86 CPUs and a client version of Windows such as Windows 98, 2000 or XP. The Macintosh client platform includes the Mac hardware and Mac OS X operating system. The Linux client platform is generally an x86-based machine with Linux, but could also be a Mac running Linux.

A computing platform includes a hardware architecture and a software framework (including application frameworks), where the combination allows software, particularly application software, to run. Typical platforms include a computer architecture, operating system, programming languages and related user interface (run-time system libraries or graphical user interface).

A platform is a crucial element in software development. A platform might be simply defined as a place to launch software. The platform provider offers the software developer an undertaking that logic code will run consistently as long as the platform is running on top of other platforms. Logic code includes bytecode, source code, and machine code. It actually means execution of the program is not restricted by the type of operating system provided.

Some software platforms emulate entire hardware platforms as in systems virtualization.