Java is new in the Real Time space, it is true. Real-time, low memory footprint behaviour has never been a goal for core Java. So your comment makes you seem foolish. ("The iPhone is crap because it still won't brew my coffee, unlike this coffee machine over here!!")

If you want to spend your life reinventing the garbage collection wheel, you are welcome. I have been informed that any sizeable c++ app needs some sort of garbage collection algorithm.... I don't have enough c++ experience to factcheck that. If it is true, then I would certainly trust the guys at Sun, Ibm etc to do it better than anyone in any given enterprise.

Java is for people who want to get work done and still have a life at the end of the day. Java is focussed at business applications, but Java can do a lot of things very well nowadays - most of the mud thrown at Java was true a decade ago, but is no longer true at all.

Real time java is on the way, though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_time_Java

I'm amazed that americans aren't up in arms - isn't USA built on the principles of the free market - supply and demand - beating the competition by producing better products and/or delivering them to the market more effectively?

This sounds like corruption, nothing else. Paying customers to stay away from the competition? Are you kidding me? This is why I try to boycott Microsoft every time I can.