Why Use Java?
To begin to understand why Java is becoming popular, you need to understand the development requirements that companies face in today's environment. Technology on both a hardware and software level is moving very quickly. The Internet and the e-commerce revolution that are currently underway are putting huge strains on IT (Information Technology) departments to come up with solutions at 'Internet speed.' Developing and supporting the same software across multiple platforms and operating systems is a very costly and time-consuming endeavor for software development shops. In the case of C/C++, you need to move the code to each hardware/OS platform and perform a compilation of the program. The code usually also needs to be modified to accommodate special features of the platform. If a problem is found in the software, the same code needs to be fixed on all the platforms and then recompiled and tested. Java eliminates these problems because there is only one version of the code, and it will behave the same way on all systems (with just a few exceptions). If a new operating system appears, as Linux did, software that was developed in Java can be executed immediately, whereas with C/C++ the code needs to be recompiled and then shipped to the customer.
Corporate IT departments also like to keep things simple. Finding qualified IT specialists is hard enough these days; finding specialists for a variety of languages is even harder. Therefore, when installing new applications, companies like to find applications that can be supported by their current IT infrastructure. With Java, these corporations do not have to invest in training or hiring people to support various languages.
Another challenge that IT departments face comes when the realization dawns that the installation of an ERP is only the beginning of a complete information solution. Data warehouses, production-planning optimizers, front-end sales CRM (Customer Relationship Management) packages, and other applications integrate into the ERP systems and make use of the centralized data and support services. Depending on the ERP system and the customizations that were made to it, a fair bit of development work is usually involved in integrating these systems.
Also, keep in mind that one reason for installing ERP systems in the first place is to reduce the overall long-term IT budget (for example, companies will not have to maintain skill sets to support numerous systems and programming languages.) Companies are more inclined to purchase third-party software to integrate into their own solution if the proposed package will save them exorbitant staffing costs.
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