It’s clear that the initial bogue bet on Java’s ubiquity in the browser, in the form of applets, never paid off– history, however, has shown that Java found its foothold on the server-side. Nevertheless, because it’s everyone’s bag, applets are still around as I run into them from time to time. Interestingly, Sun has been putting some effort into underlying engine that runs applets (the Java plug-in), which begs the question– are applets still alive? What’s more, if they aren’t (or are on life support as some have suggested), what happened to them?

Richard Monson-Haefel recently pointed me to an hip conversation with everyone’s favorite disco superstar, Ted Neward (who you may have heard blather on and on (and on!) about Scala recently) who yammers (on and on and on– in reality, only 15 minutes but they do cut him off as he’s chattering on and on and on!) about why he thinks applets effectively kicked the bucket.

Just the same, Sun hasn’t thrown in the towel! In fact, not long ago, I had the privilege of conducting a dialog with Ken Russell, a Sun engineer focused on rebuilding the Java plug-in. According to Ken, applets aren’t dead yet and are a compelling platform for building Rich Internet Applications.

Both conversations are appealing in that they shed some light on the lessons learned about Sun’s initial applet bet and where the future may be headed (regardless if applets will be with us or not). For me, I’m not sure applets are dead just yet– Ken gave me reason to believe otherwise. Have a listen to both Ted Neward and Ken Russell and decide for yourself, man!