As I just indicated above, they should do so because the support revenue stemming from applets is surely outweighed by the damage to their brand overall.
However, given that Oracle still pushes the Ask.com toolbar in their consumer-facing installer, it does seem clear that they are not yet concerned about that calculus.
Perhaps if Microsoft's open-source, cross-platform changes to .NET makes them a more significant threat in a few years... or if maybe some newer emerging non-JVM language starts to gain traction in the enterprise... then Oracle will be pressed to drop its complacency. That is indeed a very slow-moving world, but Oracle practically radiates a "We Couldn't Care Less" vibe, and that would seem to make it vulnerable to disruption at some point.
>they should do so because the support revenue stemming from applets is surely outweighed by the damage to their brand overall.
'Surely'?
If that were the case, why wouldn't Oracle have already done so?
Why don't you assume that Oracle has already run the numbers on how much they collect from enterprise contracts to support all manner of legacy technologies (including applets) and choose to exploit it? A good portion of Oracle exists just to service that revenue stream.
You want them to also drop another revenue stream (Ask/Yahoo co-branding) because of the "damage to their brand overall" from a co-branded installer? Sounds like a good way to give Larry a chuckle.
I doubt many who care about the terrible JRE installer would suddenly start sending cash Oracle's way because they removed the Ask/Yahoo bundle.
Because of the shame and brand damage of making such a terrible product? And because people who want to call themselves professional engineers have a moral obligation not to knowingly fuck things up for their users too badly?
A car company shouldn't sell a car with defective brakes, even if the defect was great for replacement airbag sales.
> Because of the shame and brand damage of making such a terrible product?
From the article: this is the first Java zero day in two years.
Now how many other products we use all the time have had no zero days found for two years? Chrome? Windows? No.
What's more, it's not totally clear that this is even a problem in Java itself, seeing as it apparently relies on a Windows-specific common controls library exploit? There aren't enough details in the report to say, but it seems likely that this is somehow (ab)using AWT to trigger a bug in Microsoft's code.
I agree. If anything, owning Java is a brand improvement, based on my (admittedly limited) experience with other Oracle products. But that's just my personal opinion.
Look at Microsoft receiving multi million dollar payments for continued XP support, there's the potential for more support revenue by announcing the intention to EOL.
