What Is Target Platform?

In IT, there are a lot of things to get excited about, but this next one has created so much buzz that we had to have a word about target platforms. It sounds like a term that should be reserved for military jargon, but it's a simple concept. Target platform is a generally used term in IT to discuss a platform of focus. A target platform can refer to the platform for which something is being built, a platform that is desirable for use, or simply a platform on which a particular technology is focusing. These terms have become more familiar with multiplatform software and services that integrate operations across many platforms. A database management tool may concentrate its efforts on a specific platform at a given time, and this platform may be referred to as the target platform. For example, engineers may refer to a single target platform while discussing operations if the DBMS tool accesses Oracle, Sybase and other databases. By contrast, in Eclipse PDE (a software development environment), where engineers often talk about a target platform as the destination for a particular design, it's important to distinguish between these two uses of the term. There are many different ways to use the word "target platform". Sometimes, people use it more informally to discuss something popular among end-users. For example, articles on different video game consoles may refer to a target platform as the console or technology most in demand by gamers. This term can also be used formally by software developers creating applications and other digital products. When working on these products, they must consider how they will work with different operating systems or hardware devices. The device or operating system they plan to develop their development is often referred to as the target platform.