Clay Shirky:

"Seen in this light, the recent announcement by Microsoft not to include a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) with its future operating systems is a terrible blow to the computing ecosystem. This decision threatens to lower the diversity of programs that can easily run on the PC, and it raises unnecessary barriers to interconnecting the world's devices."

Blah blah blah. Nobody uses Java in the browser (yeah, yeah, I find the SmartMoney map cool too, especially on Xmas). In case no one noticed, this is 2001, not 1998. But if OEMs want to install more useless software on their machine, I'm not one to argue. Consumers don't need it, and large accounts deploy their own customized masters. Since you can buy a 40Gb drive for a little more than $100 these days, OEMs can spare a (fraction of a) dime for Sun, can't they?

And if you want to run a Java server application, it's not like you care about the default OS installation, and chances are you're running on Unix anyway. A "religious" stance on software will push even the most intelligent people to make moot points.

07/24/01 update: Save Java!.