This seems like a bit of a fantasy to me. The notion that a significant use of java in enterprises is to churn out large numbers of small CRUD applications on

This seems like a bit of a fantasy to me. The notion that a significant use of java in enterprises is to churn out large numbers of small CRUD applications on brand new database schemas (which is really the only place such huge productivity boost is possible) is naive. In fact, often it is about internal interfacing between legacy systems with horrible, gigantic and contorted schemas that are near impossible to map into such frameworks and thus might actually turn out less productive since things like ROR are built on a whole lot of "assumptions" about what the system looks like that explode on you all over the place when it doesn't. If there's a turn around in outsourcing then I think it's more to do with the costs of prior projects coming home to roost and changing the perception of it and / or the cheaper USD.