Here's a snippet I took of a Java SWING developers blog:

<snip>
You try telling your users that they need to upgrade to >2Gb of memory
when all they want to run is 5 or so Java GUIs of only moderate
complexity. </p> Now I'm sure these GUI could have been better written
so as not to be resource hogs, but they weren't. Which leads me neatly
onto the other problem I have. Swing is all very nice and obviously can
work very well, but in practice there doesn't seem to be many developers
who can do Swing well and quickly. They also aren't cheap to hire. </snip>

Finally, Oh Finally, someone from the real world !!. It makes me want to
cry with joy when I finally come accross a developer who has some
business acumen as well as technical savvy. Most developers are complete
morons when it comes to what drives business.

We are currently about to roll out version 1.0 of our commercial product
- built from new (so I had a choice over what technology/language to use
at the frontend), after several months of deliberating and due
diligence, I have come to the conclusion (as much as it hurts me), that
90% if not more of our clients will be running Windoze. I must be mad to
put my company at a disadvantage (because technically, I am in the
Java/Linux camp). It would be completely insane for me to go to the
market with a front end that is not ready for prime time. The fact is
that we are all told and know in theory that we should not judge a book
by its cover - but what do we do the first thing we some beautiful
person walk past us (even though we may know that they may be a "bitch"
- in terms of personality). This is why plastic surgery is so much in
vogue at the moment - because looks *Do* make a difference morons (pull
your head out of your techie arses). Another point the enlightened OP
made was this - sure you can get Java to "dance" and (possibly) compete
with native apps on Win32 - but at what cost?. By the time you get
someone who is experienced enough to do what you want (read high fixed
costs for a vulture preying on the insane and masquerading as a
"consultant"), you could have walked accross the road, plucked a spotty
teenager from behind the counter at McDonalds and taught him/her to
design 15/20 equivalent GUIs that the "consultant" has "oh, so carefully
and gingerly handcrafted". This is overindulgence at its worst. It makes
absolutely no f**king business sense !!!. Whats the point? - the user
doesn't know (or care) about the difference.

Its sad - SWING has a lot of potential, but its still not ready for
prime time. Business people like me who have to make desicions and
compete on the desktop (almost implicitly, Windoze), will inevitably opt
for a Micro$oft solution - because although we may not love it at heart,
we must give it its due props - it gets the job done quicker and better
(as far as the end user is concerned) than SWING (incidentally or QT or
any other GUI frameowrk on Windows). Mr Gates did not get to be a
billionaire by not understanding how to "tie" people to his OS. He's got
a good thing going and he will fight tooth and nail to preserve his
territory (Who wouldn't). I mean we still have to put up with half-assed
releases from Micro$oft, and then contend with several dozen or so
"patches" afterwords, but hey what you gonna do? - it's all we've got at
the moment - and it does er, the job anyway..

In the mean time, what does the Java lobby do? - instead of
consolidating its efforts to delivering a killer blow, its got its head
far up its arse, and its split with infighting between SWING and SWT,
completely oblivious of a real threat in the desktop war,advancing from
a blindspot : Macromedia Flash.

Well for me, I haven't got the inclination or the time for these "geeky"
battles. I want to make money - and as far as I know, that goal is
reached by delivering a feature rich and responsive (read blisteringly
fast) application that has a shallow learning curve (i.e. PLF) to the
client. That unfortunately, spells Micoro$oft. You in the Java camp can
keep playing with your new SWING gadget - for me, I'm off to make some
money in the real world.

So long suckers ...!