The problem with native desktop Java applications that although Swing is quite powerful, it requires developers to go through books like "Filthy Rich Clients"[0] to really take advantage of it. Which very few do.
To this day I still meet developers that aren't aware how to change the default L&F to native widgets, for example.
Whereas Windows Forms and WPF already provide a much easier out of the box experience, and have tooling like Blend available.
I am curious what the JavaFX sessions at JavaONE will cover.
> UI in .NET and the backend in Java.
makes a lot of sense.