Combined with the dot-com boom "general hype", I'm sure a lot of managers pushed heavyweight solutions where lightweight would have sufficed. Well, that may be an eternal problem, but maybe more succeeded in pushing them with a lot of hype. :-)

Not enough people I guess saw this as Sun trying to be the new Microsoft (which was the new IBM, which still has MVS & Cobol!), namely the company in control of The Platform, where here "The" just means the hip new thing kids learn in school and want to continue doing before they become expensive old timers.