Summary US Robotics has had a see-saw summer on Wall Street, and to date has no formal Java strategy. But don't throw in the towel yet. At the time, I did an electro-mumble about increased demands for bandwidth and desktop growth, later watching the stock tumble on news of slowing demand. Let's look at the cost of owning a modem over the course of its useful life.
Beverage companies get the nod because their products are continually used up, re-generating demand.
Diet Coke for breakfast. Java applications don't require a whole lot of bandwidth once they're loaded and running. Interacting with a locally run applet is certainly preferable to the constant yammering of a server-push GIF animation, although the latter drives demand. Loading the Java applet, however, remains the largest time component of startup for users on dial-up networks. So there's one vote for USRX to enjoy a second-order effect of widespread Java use.