[smallpaul]

A few years ago, I took over maintenance of a Windows program that depended upon a Java component wrapped in COM. With Sun and Microsoft at war, that seemed a bit risky to me.

I asked: "why is this Java component in the Windows client app?" The answer was that the server was also implemented in Java and the SOAP libraries were compatible, whereas Microsoft's and Java's were not (at that time).

I nearly choked: they chose a "standard" like SOAP and then re-standardized on a particular library (client and server components of it) "for compatibility."

So to bring this digression back to relevance, I'll say this: if you already have Java code around, it will be easiest to talk to it from Java. And since Java is the new COBOL, there is a bunch of Java floating around. (but if you need a Java client to talk to a Java server using a "standard" protocol then something is seriously awry somewhere)