Client Platforms
This page provides an introduction to standards issues around Client platforms. See also the Recommended standards on Client platforms.
Client Platforms refers to the hardware, software and operating systems required by end-users to access electronic resources. When developing content, developers need to have a minimum client platform specification in mind. The recommendations provided on this site are from the national Flexible Learning Toolboxes initiative.
It is accepted that some VET organisations, and indeed many community education centres are not able to implement a 3 year IT replacement strategy common in commercial environments. To this end Toolbox resources aim to support computer infrastructure that represents the range in the education sector.
However, without a sensible support cut off point the developers of content would be required to maintain support for obscure platforms that are no longer used widely in the system.
The 2006 Toolbox specification nominates selected hardware and software infrastructure that was released to the market towards the second half of 2001. This will result in supporting infrastructure that will already be 5-6 years old when Series 9 Toolboxes are released at the end of the year.
This does not mean that content produced for the supported specification will not run on older configurations. It purely means that developers do not have to work around specific “quirks” of older operating systems and browser releases, which adds considerably to development and QA overheads. In addition, if accessibility standards are followed, users running on hardware, operating systems, or browsers that are no longer offically 'supported', are effectively provided for.
