It would only take a handful of users at one phone manufacturer to get a JRE on millions of devices. It was this sort of "billions of devices!" claim years ago

It would only take a handful of users at one phone manufacturer to get a JRE on millions of devices. It was this sort of "billions of devices!" claim years ago that sort of rubbed me the wrong way. Going back to early/mid 2000s, that hype was all over the place, but could you install your own code on those devices? Generally not. Having a JRE on 500 million set-top boxes does very little for the Java developer population's ability to deploy code - it only help(s|ed) the developers employed at the set-top box company.