If I had my way, if anyone suggests using Java in the browser for custom apps, I’ll tell the to go away and come back with an idea using conventional HTML,CSS and JavaScript, combined with standard server side scripting (PHP, ASP, or something) and Postgres/Mysql/etc.
Back in the IE5.5 day our apps worked just fine in other browsers too, with just minor interpretation of menus etc. to set settings in browser.
It’s not just our users, but several 100’s on the project that access the same interface from shed loads of research institutes and universities etc.
On the IE6 to IE7 migration (or the MS to Sun enforced migration), we basically had to tell 80% of the users running Firefox and Safari to go find an XP machine, since only IE7/XP would be supported in future.
Had it been PHP/MySQL/JS and a pair of certificates, everything would work hunkydory on pretty much any browser you could ever imagine, and better still have an API whereby anyone could write their own custom tools in Python, Ruby, Perl, VB, and still access the same data.
Oh and when a manager mentions “COTS”, I shudder.