Awhile back I had this to say about suggestions that Java, being mainstream, is safer than Smalltalk. Well, there's some fascinating numbers you can pull out on that. This Gartner information states that fully 40% of all IT projects fail:

A September survey by the Gartner Group, a technology consulting company, revealed that approximately 40% of information technology (IT) projects do not produce their intended results, an indication of how badly some companies need the consulting services of a tech-savvy CPA. Gartner's prediction that global IT spending will reach $3.3 trillion by 2002 highlighted the broader implications of this finding.

Now combine that with this Gartner study, in which they state that, to date, Java projects have a 70% failure rate - and that they expect the same failure rate for .NET. So, by using Java instead of what you already know, you increase your chances of failure dramatically. To see the weirdness here, merely note that they

1. Recommend that you use Java or .NET
2. Note that they report much higher failure rates for those decisions

and then decide whether they are worth listening to, since they apparently don't look at their own data when making recommendations. Heck, even political polling firms are smarter than that.