Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anyone who does not like MS because of the $ cannot at the same time like Java.
It's not a question of $ or of liking MS, it is a question of trust. Microsoft can and will suddenly discontinue entire solutions like Silverlight. I know of a company that is in real trouble because they first rewrote their entire application in Silverlight and now have to do it again in HTML5... Java on the desktop is almost dead due to the horrible JRE by Oracle. On the server and on Android it is alive and well,…
We were trying to use Java Webstart, but we gave up, because of the fact that some modern browsers just block the Java plugin.
I have to use a Java applet for some customer VPN's I am connecting to and the only browser this works for me is Internet Explorer to connect to those VPNs.
You can still write Winforms applications and this is some really old technique. Maybe you are still able to use MFC, but I haven't tested that in a LONG time.