Does Java have a future?

Java's future was debated at a conference alongside this week's PC Expo in New York, with the man from Borland revealing the results of a survey of high-level corporate executives. The predominant response from those surveyed was "Java is over." I don't think we need to take this literally, but it could become common currency if Sun -- which owns Java -- continues to make mistakes. Sun's main problem is that it has lost its ability to think straight because of its anti-Microsoft paranoia. History shows that companies that take this approach always lose, because Microsoft plays this game much better than anybody else.The way to beat Microsoft is to focus on delivering better products to customers as, for example, Intuit has done. If Sun had spent less time and energy in court and more on providing what customers wanted then maybe it wouldn't have been outflanked and outsmarted by C# and VisualStudio.net. At the moment, Sun is just repeating the mistakes made by companies such as Lotus Development, Netscape and Palm. Being tied up in court didn't stop Microsoft from delivering C#, VisualStudio.net, Windows XP, Office XP, Offfice for Mac OS X, PocketPC 2002, Stinger mobile phone software, MSN Explorer (with a revamped MSN service) and Xbox, to name but a few.