I suggest looking into the 'jar splash (image)' ability
available in 1.6+.  It is claimed to use native code to
get it on-screen (hence no JVM load - no class load,
for it to show).

You might be better off investigating options closer
to home, there are any number of techniques that
can be used to speed an application's appearance
onto screen, or provide the user with enough feedback
for them to avoid going 'crazy in frustration'.

Andrew T.

It might be worth a quick experiment with the -Xint parameter to force the app
to run under the interpreter.  It depends on what the JVM is doing during the
delay, but if it is mostly analysing and JITing bytecode, rather than actually
/executing/ that bytecode, then the interpreter should be able to get going
faster.

Of course that assumes that your app doesn't have to do lots of heavy
performance-critical stuff once it is up and running.  But that would be a
fairly unusual situation.

   -- chris