Despite the apparent dominance of Windows, in the broad computer world there are numerous platform options providing specialized features. Most of those platforms are based upon an operating system, but that doesn't have to be the case. Java and the Web are exceptions; neither is an operating system, but each provides a foundation for application developers.

The fact that platforms are, in many ways, incompatible with other platforms is both their raison d'être and their curse. Platforms are designed, not to make life difficult, but to facilitate an environment where developers can optimally serve specific needs. Rather than having convergence, we have as many platforms as ever and that trend is likely to continue. A recent article in the New York Times described the fast growing market niche for companies specializing in linking data from multiple platforms.

Our organizations embrace multiple platforms as a way to leverage the high cost of software development. For Help authors, this presents numerous design and implementation challenges. The number of different platforms we need to support and the nature of those platforms impacts our entire development process. We addressed this issue in our survey by asking respondents to indicate which operating systems/platforms their products run on.

As shown in the figure below, the overwhelming majority of respondents (98%) are involved in supporting the Windows platform in its 32-bit variations. The actual platform market share for Windows among all users (not just our respondents) is probably closer to 90%.

Five years after Windows 95 appeared, and on the eve of the release of Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 3.x support is still strong (26%). The lack of backward compatibility of HTML Help is probably still a major issue for many Help developers.

The biggest change is the recognition of the World Wide Web or intranets as a platform. The Web appears to be the future GUI front-end to every operating system. A striking 70% of respondents described the Web as a place on which their products run. Discussions at Help conferences and seminars and numerous articles in software trade journals empirically reinforce that we are at the beginning of a strong transition toward Web-based applications. Even Microsoft has dramatically changed its opinion on network computing with its recent announcement of the "dot Net" initiative. However, the 70% figure seems to be almost too large. While virtually all current software development seems to have a Web application development strategy, there are not that many applications currently in release that are based on Web technologies.

Other findings of note

UNIX is very strong at 42%. Coupled with the Linux numbers, open source platforms are supported by 58% of the respondents. With at least a dozen flavors of UNIX and no common Help standard, browser-based Help has become the most popular solution for user assistance in that arena.

The percentage supporting Java is strong at 24%, but it is not clear that this will correspond to a large number of JavaHelp systems. The acceptance of JavaHelp by the development community seems slow and it may not be able to compete with browser-based Help solutions.

All but one supporter of the Macintosh platform also support Windows.

Cross-platform support

Respondents could select more than one platform in answering this question. In response, 87% of them reported that their products run on more than one platform. The average number of platforms supported was 2.9. That's just enough variety to cause us headaches.

The figure below illustrates the magnitude of cross-platform support. A third of us support at least two platforms and over half support two to three. Only 13% can confine their work to a single platform.

Of the Windows 32-bit supporters, only 27% also still support Windows 3.x. None of the respondents who support a single Windows platform supported only 16-bit Windows.

Of the Windows supporters, 43% support both Windows 32-bit and some flavor(s) of UNIX. Of the UNIX supporters, 98% also support Windows.

Java is essentially a platform built on top of other platforms to facilitate single-source code development. Nearly 52% of the Java supporters indicated they were supporting 3 or 4 other platforms.

Other frequently mentioned platforms included VMS, DOS, OS/390, AS/400, and NetWare.