They can plan like this because they are the new cobol - they have an assured install base. If they make 100% back-compatible, and definitely better, everyone w

They can plan like this because they are the new cobol - they have an assured install base. If they make 100% back-compatible, and definitely better, everyone will upgrade. As for the very vague improvements mentioned (GPU, no primitives), these can be seen in response to clear technology trends. Even the embedded GPUs in x86 are getting pretty powerful, though not every business has them - but by 2015 most will. Java has primitives primarily for performance and memory efficiency. Absolutely crucial at Java's inception, they though remain important today, many applications can get away without them (e.g. ruby apps). By 2017. even more apps will be in that category. Most of the others are similarly responses to clear trends, such as hypervisor-aware and large data support. However, true generics seems problematic because it would break back-compatibility. My prediction: if they plan to break back-compatibility they will change their mind.