After reading the announcement of the Beta release of JavaFX 2.0 some people in the blogosphere started to blame Oracle for making it available only on Windows. I work on MAC computers too, but don ‘t want to get into the Windows vs. Mac vs. Linux flame war. I ‘m OK with JavaFX starting on Windows version first (about 90% of software developers use Windows). My concern is that JavaFX remains in a permanet “almost ready ” state. I was able to afford being an early adopter with JavaFX 1.0, but not this time.

I ‘m waiting to hear a clear message from Oracle explaining WHY a startup or an enterprise development shop should switch from whatever RIA solution they use to JavaFX 2.0.

I ‘d like to see a comparison chart of JavaFX 2.0 with Flex, Silverlight, HTML5 showing where the strength of JavaFX is. Being that rich UI component library, fast communication with the server side, or a set of tools that makes software development more productive. Why Oracle Marketing and PR keeps silence? The roadmap has a number of statements mentioning improvements here and there. Improvements of what? Of JavaFX 1.3 that has never seen the light of the day (I mean the real-world use)?

Today, the main target for any RIA platform should be consumer facing (smart phone/tablet-ready) applications, not the enterprise segment where most of the users are happy to see the data in any form (grey screens with rectangular grids and forms still rule over there). I want to see a seemlessly installable runtime for JavaFX applications.

Give a brand new computer to your grandma and ask her to visit a Web site that includes a JavaFX 2.0 applet. Will she be able to complete the process of installing the runtime? If you think I ‘m asking for too much, repeat this grandma test with any Web site that contains Flash or Silverlight content.

Sun Microsystems first announced JavaFX four years ago. Now it ‘s in Oracle ‘s hands, but they ‘ve yet to show any impressive commercial application developed with this tool.