[iSnow]

The enterprise is where Oracle make their money. They could care less about enthusiasts (as if there were any of their technology) and they don't really care for startups and small shops.

Their main target is huge enterprise customers where Applets are still used today.

[jlgreco]

Just because enterprise customers are keeping old versions around on their desktops to run applets doesn't mean that they aren't using newer versions on their servers, or even also on those same desktops.

I'm really not seeing why they should care.