Now Oracle is doing the same, somewhat. Of course, it isn't dropping the ball on Java entirely but it is announcing the inevitable and probably demise of the Java web browser plugin.

Java’s rapid rise to fame 20 years ago began with a tumbling duke applet running in the HotJava browser, long before Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome were released.

For now, businesses that rely on Java browser plugins can continue using them in compatible browsers. But Oracle has a white paper with details about migrating from Java Applets to plugin-free ...

The Java Plug-in is a browser plug-in that overrides the browser’s default JVM and lets you run applets with a specified JVM.

Oracle said it would remove browser plug-in support from the JDK and the Java Run Time Environment (JRE) in an unspecified future release.