Craig,

(reordered)
>>Agreed and have said so before. Still, Java is currently in the brains of most gov IT the free & professional solution.

>If you have Windows, you have .Net. Free of charge.
>Are you saying .Net is not a professional solution?

Not at all - from the Jonathan Schwartz days the PERCEPTION of java in such circles gained a lot.
I do realize that C# with ECMA is at least as professional and open sourcable -
but the direction for the next version being discussed in the "community process"
is much more palatable to that mind set as it ***sounds*** democratic and all that $hit.

In my eyes you as a simple developer have NIL chances of moving either of those tankers -
Java just has the better "stable smell" - dunno if that translates (Stallgeruch).

Oracle with the lawsuite and different corporate attitude dampened the perception lead Java had over Dotnet,
But MS lost favours with their doc structure in office for instance.

>>Lots if integration needed, Java prototypes / API etc first, Dotnet will come but later.
>I don't understand what you are saying here.

For integration tasks often a full demo application with XML/RPC, SOAP, REST or other transfer mechanism is created
and offered to potential data consumers. This will for instance set up an apache server and have some java dummy data
sent or java app utilizing the API that so you can try out the code and/or listen to at the HTTP level.
Very often this will have some devious java kinks which can be set while configuring the server, such as weaving athorization
or cookie info into some parts of the message which is considered "standard" form java POV,
but stops MS out of the box efforts from working - at least when developing the API and usually up to version 1.x

In the next round the cries of Dotnet developers depending on automatic translation are cared for -
while I often implement a basic throw-away wrapper to the Java interface by hand.
More expensive in man H, but lets the small company look very professional as we offer support
while in the drafting phase, giving the clients no worries that our coding will be complete before using such APIs is mandatory.

>>Java has kept the mobile lure in part via android
>It should be the other way around. Android has kept Java going in mobile.
>
Java ME was a PITA and only bearable because previous mobile CPU lacked power
and disk space. Android going more for a SE type of breadth had the target
WP7 hinted at and perhaps WP8 will hit.
Java ME *and* eariler MS offerings were too weak, but Java got into gear earlier IMHO.

>> - MS still firing blanks with a vengeance in that area,
>>previously hailed WP7 a commercial bust as I predicted, even if it is fun...
>>Adoption and Jobs: more on the Java side, but slightly lesser paid.

>WinPhone still has work to do, but it's slowly making headway. It's telling when customer reviews on Amazon rate Windows Phones. Eight of the top 12 are Windows Phones.

I played with WP7 a bit, looked at the dev story - really coming together.
But after so many MS blunders in mobile perhaps market adoption is/will be less than pure merit would cause.