Yes, one reason for the success of Java was the huge amount of investment Sun put into it - in both marketing and tech improvements. I read that they spent millions on that. And it did result in benefits. Across the span of some years, anecdotally, the performance of Java apps improved a hell of a lot - I remember noticing it, say maybe from 1.2 to 1.6 or so. E.g. some servlet + JSP based app running a lot faster at the end of that period than at the beginning.
A pity that they did not seem to handle the business side of things well, and went down and were bought. (I'm sure there were external factors too, don't mean to say it was partly or wholly their fault. Just don't know.) Don't know much details on exactly why that happened, though I did read about it now and then, and follow Jonathan Schwartz's (last CEO of Sun) blog for a while.
