[moondowner]

They can use Java 7. Oracle can provide security updates for it. And all those enterprise customers can use that one. It's not a problem to have multiple JVMs installed.

The point is, if a Java developer starts working on a new product/project, it is very likely that he won't use Applets.

And one more thing, I know companies, that use Java based tools/apps, where they are not moving from Java 5 or 6. It's too expensive (installing newer JVMs, testing the environment and everything...) and they don't feel the need to do that.

[notimetorelax]

We decided to switch to Java 7 simply because Java 6 has reach its end of life. There will be no more security patches for it (IIRC). I think Oracle still offers paid support for the older versions, but I don't know how much it is.

[iso8859-1]

You are right, the final update was 3 days ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_version_history#cite_ref-6...