With its Windows operating system platform, the company succeeded Windows 98 and Windows 2000 with Windows XP and then the oft-criticized Windows Vista.
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As always, malware on the Mac appears relatively tame when compared with PC malware, but malware can be written for any operating system and platform.
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Thinking about cars as a platform raises the prospect that someone could produce a sort of operating system for that platform and capture a huge share of the value, as Apple did with its iPod and iPhone and as Microsoft did with personal computers.
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For example, Android, the operating system, is a platform for devices and phone.
The Microsoft Windows 8 operating system will bring the Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs, the basis of storage device-based encryption security as well as additional security features) to wider use for enterprise applications.
Project Shield and Ouya suggest Google's operating system will become a major gaming platform.
And it tried to turn Symbian, its own operating system for smartphones, into a platform in the mould of the iPhone and Android.
Based on the Android operating system, Cisco Cius is an open platform for communication and collaboration whose form factor and applications are designed to more securely connect employees on-the-go with the right people in real-time, and to provide those workers with the ability to access and share the content they need from any place on the network.
The company can apply its own security standards across each platform, regardless of the operating system.
The Android platform, which is the operating system provided by Google ( GOOG), now accounts for more than 40% of all wireless phone sales in the United States, and Motorola is well positioned to continue to take advantage of this.
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Nokia has been turning around slowly after its gutsy decision to abandon its in-house smartphone platform and support Microsoft Office Phone operating system.
Next month will see Microsoft show the world Windows Phone 8 and the smartphone operating system they hope will confirm them as the third platform.
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Another entrant, Jolla, says its 'Sailfish' platform is a second-generation operating system like BlackBerry's BB10 and is easy to use because it has a gesture-based user interface and is designed to avoid patent litigation.
"There's no doubt what we're looking at here is a platform that's similar to an operating system like Windows or OSX, " says McCrea.
Zacks expects IP will eventually be able to double its profits in part by integrating the entire platform of its operations into a single operating system.
How often an app crashes depends on a combination of factors such as the platform (Android or iOS), specific operating system (iOS 5 vs 6) and the device.
If you consider SharePoint as an operating system for the enterprise and allow business people to exploit the platform, embrace the ideals of the App Store, using hybrid deployments with integration to cloud solutions (Office365 I think is a killer app here) then it is possible to have the best of both worlds.
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Google on Wednesday released a platform preview for its Android 3.0 mobile operating system (otherwise known as Honeycomb) along with an updated set of SDK tools.
's Mac operating system have had to come to grips with the fact that the platform they love so much is not the lingua franca of the computing world.
Last year Nokia's Stephen Elop flung his company off what he described as a burning platform, putting the Finnish giant's Symbian operating system out to grass to get into bed with Microsoft's Windows Phone.
Jonathan Broskey, a former Apple employee who now heads the Army's Apple program, argues that the Unix core at the center of the Mac OS operating system makes it easier to lock down a Mac than a Windows platform.
It gives Google a hardware platform and patent protection for key aspects of its Android operating system.
Google, the search platform that delivers ads, has transformed itself with an operating system powering an ecosystem, ala Apple, and its goal is to ubiquitous.
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After his famous "burning platform" memo, he opted to abandon the Symbian operating system, and choose Windows Phone rather than Android as the lifeboat to take Nokia to calmer waters.
"So instead of building a phone, which seems like a desperate move, Facebook should partner with every operating system and carrier and hardware maker it can to try to embed this social platform within every mobile platform, " Blodget said.
It marks the firm's latest effort to keep users loyal to the platform ahead of the much-delayed release of the Blackberry 10 operating system.
BBC: Blackberry introduces free wi-fi calls on BBM chat tool
The only downside is that it is running Symbian, the platform Nokia is in the process of dumping, rather than its operating system of choice, Windows Phone.
CNN: Google and super-powerful phones the stars of mobile show
In fact, in its early days, it didn't have apps at all as the company urged developers to create optimized web apps for the platform similar to what Mozilla is now advocating for its streamlined mobile operating system Boot2Gecko.
Atlanta-based EarthLink (nasdaq: ELNK - news - people ), the No. 3 Internet service provider in the U.S., is now offering wireless Internet service to not just Blackberry and Motorola (nyse: MOT - news - people ) pagers, but also to devices based on the Palm (nasdaq: PALM - news - people ) operating system and Microsoft 's (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) PocketPC platform.
With new handsets based on the QNX operating system not due until early 2012, and questions over whether application designers will be willing to support the platform, we believe there are serious concerns for RIM over the next year.
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