Why You Can No Longer Ignore Cross-platform Products?

By Author: Ruth Jackson
Total Articles: 50
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Life would have been a lot simpler -- devoid of interoperability issues -- if we had only one operating system. Unfortunately, it is not so and computer platforms abound, such as Windows, Mac, Linux, etc. The proliferation of variety of options presents a challenge to application providers who have their target audience spread across multiple platforms. By developing software for one computer platform, you lose out on large sections of this target audience present across others. Would Mozilla Firefox, Google Earth, Skype, FileZilla, OpenOffice, or Gimp be as popular worldwide as they are now if they were running on only one operating system?

Cross-platform (X-platform) applications can run on more than one operating system or computer architecture. The proliferation of platforms plus the Web have fundamentally altered customer expectations. More and more users are beginning to expect their software to run on most, if not all, major computer platforms. In the light of this new reality, cross platform software development is becoming increasingly important.

Different approaches exist for X-platform software ...
... development. The most straightforward approach would be to develop different software applications (designed to function similarly) for different computer platforms. For example, you may consider creating three different platform-specific versions of your product for Mac OS X, Windows & Linux. However, not only does this approach increase development time & cost, it can present enormous challenges while fixing bugs, maintaining and upgrading the different programs down the line.

To make the process of cross platform application development faster and better, a number of tools are available in the market today, such as Real Studio, Qt, Mozilla application framework, etc. Most of these tools enable one to create cross-platform applications (able to run on multiple desktop operating systems) without having to rewrite the source code. This is a great way to leverage your one-time software development investment across multiple computer platforms and target audience subsets.

Real Studio Application Development
Real Studio, formerly known as Realbasic, is one of the most popular X-platform application development tools. Developed plus marketed by Real Software, RS offers a sophisticated Rapid Application Development environment. Using RS, you can create powerful native applications for Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, and the Web – starting from utilities to enterprise-class solutions. You can use RS Desktop Edition to directly compile your Realbasic code to the machine language for platforms like Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows & Linux. Similarly, you can use RS Web Edition to rapidly create rich Web 3.0 applications using a visual interface builder and a single language for application logic.

Mindfire Solutions
Expert service providers like Mindfire Solutions, backed by years of experience in commercial Real Studio application development, can help you leverage Real Studio's power in helping you do, for example, the following:

Develop cross platform software for Mac, Windows & Linux.

Build powerful, secure Web 3.0 applications.

Migrate Visual Basic to powerful X-platform apps.

Create powerful database solutions with Real SQL Database.

Create versatile RS plugins.

Support Real Studio applications.

Independently validate RS applications.