@FIRST_LIGHT

Having worked on .NET clients, the most widely deployed version is definitely a concern for product teams. But other than development tools, no one thinks to do Java on the client anyway. The interfaces it creates are too foreign and the runtime overhead is too high for snappy UI.

Java is all about the server so why should Sun care how big that download is. Sadly, after having revisited the J2EE stack recently (after doing client software for the last few years), I was horrified at how bloated they've managed to make everything on the server now too. The emergence of Web 2.0 simplicity for online services has now taken a big portion of the Internet server market away now too. Java is now pigeon-holed to the enterprise where we can only expect it to continue to get more bloated and more complicated.

[BTW, that software update image is behind a password protected URL, so no one except you can see it :-)]