A computer platform generally means the operating system and computer hardware only. The platform conforms to a set of standards that enable software developers to develop software applications for the platform. These same standards allow owners and managers to purchase appropriate applications and hardware. Thus, if you want to run a bookkeeping program on your computer, you will need to purchase a bookkeeping software application that was developed for the platform on which you will be using it.

New standards-based interfaces and open interfaces allow applications programs to run on multiple platforms. Additionally, software developers have developed software tools that allow applications to run on multiple platforms. This has given rise to the terms cross-platform software and multi-platform software.

Newer web browsers allow third party plug-ins to be run as part of the browser. Therefore some browsers are now spoken of as platforms since they are used as a base on which to run other applications software programs.

An example of a computing platform is a modern laptop running Windows as an operating system. Other examples would be an Apple computer running the Mac OS X operating system.