| Many many reasons: * Compatibility with installed base of existing code - Java is so prevalent on the server side that this is often a critical requirement * Performance - The JVM is an amazing platform with excellent JIT compilation, very efficient garbage collection, great for concurrency etc. * Huge library ecosystem, second to none. Most of the ecosystem is open source and if you choose your libraries and frameworks appropriately (i.e. anything but J2EE!) then you can be pretty much as agile as any other language. * Major corporate backing (IBM, Oracle, Google, Red Hat). There's enough diversity in the supplier ecosystem that you don't need to worry about vendor lock-in too much (e.g. competing app servers). * Java is more open and cross platform than the only credible alternative (.Net) - From a CIO perspective .Net is effectively vendor lock-in to a Microsoft stack. * Great availability of "good enough" developers. There are also plenty of rockstars in the Java world if you look hard enough. * Maintainable code. Java's relatively simple and concise syntax actually makes it quite easy to maintain with the medium-skill developers that most corporates have. * It's not Java per se., but the innovation happening in the new JVM languages (especially Scala and Clojure) actually puts the JVM pretty right at the cutting edge of language development. Note that a lot of the above reasons make Java a good choice for startup companies too, especially if you pick one of the new languages and go for "Java the platform" rather than "Java the language". |