Wow all the pot shots at Java. I will try and address some here.
1. Java 5 or JDK 1.5 - naming standard. For the marketing dorks out there they look at this and say we run on Java 5. Yep Java is up to version 5. For the people that have a clue, we realize that a ton of different technologies make up Java and all of them have a version number.

2. Sun and the community don't focus on business only IBM seems to "get it". Well given that developers are the ones who help set what gets put in to the language, and ALL those developers are in a service oriented business; they probably want to make the language better for themselves, thus making it better for business. Also, don't take a cheap shot without giving an example of what you mean.

3. Java is not cross platform, that is a pipe dream - Well our company runs hundreds of thoughsands of lines of Java code on many different platforms. We have NEVER had to change one line of code. The only small issues we have had was our coders being lazy and some vendors handled errors better than others.

This new version does't add any value to my company. - Well there are two ways of looking at this. Your pesamistic view , or a view that says this new version will NOT break any of your old software and it will probably increase the speed of it while allowing other more experienced developers the ability to add new features. Think about it, you can just upgrade your JVM and get a speed improvement. Then any new projects you can take advantage of those new API's.

.Net is better because of XYZ - Well the day I can download ALL of the .NET components for free and have it run on multiple platforms (Mono is not even close), then I might agree. However, If for some reason I hate one vendor, I must be able to go to another vendor and still use .Net. That will also NEVER be possible. Does any of this mean .Net is worse than Java? No, but you have to realize that once you go to a .Net solution you will be vendor locked in to Microsoft forever. Your clients will probably be forced in to an Internet Explorer world also... For those HUGE concessions I would certainly hope Microsoft could add "some" value.

Yakov Fain forgot to ask why Tiger isn't just renamed J5SE...to distinguish it from J2SE

The URL you give, I notice, calls it 1.5 still!!!http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/

The comments of financialguy are really sad. The fact that his company does not see a need to use new versions of Java makes me think that this company should consider hiring some senior Java programmers.

Let alone syntax improvements, but how can you ignore the VM improvements that may substantially improve performance of any client or server side application? Just read this.
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/relnotes/features.html#vm

Also, Java is a proven commodity in the business world. Let's not go into the mood "now we're going to hit .Net". Microsoft has its strong following and some great languages and technologies. Let's respect what they are doing, while trying to study J2SE and J2EE and make it better.

Is this in fact Java 5, or Java 1.5?
Until the Java world manages to get its act together on agreeing that little detail, forgive me if I remain skeptical about their agreeing APIs in sufficient detail for write-once, run-anywhere to be anything more than a nice fairy-tale.

If any one is interested in reading the Tiger release notes, they can be found at http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/relnotes/featu res.html

Im sure like its going to hit the .Net

I would just love to read an indepth article about the different new features with examples of how to use them.

Yakov asked some great questions. I would always add if we didn't add something that would make your applications run better then please let us know. The expert group did prioritize what went in the release (including IBM who were a great jcp member). We have added the top 10 items from the fortune 500 companies I talked too, and many of the top websites you may use each day have Java at the backend ( you may be surprised) The snmp/jmx adminstrative console was a good example of a real business need, including low memory notifications.

So you have nothing to lose, send me an email and I'll send you a reply

perhaps the most interesting aspect of all this is that in my company not one of the new features of 1.3, 1.4, and now 5.0 is really importnat to create value for our business...in fact, the increasingly academic process of JAVA definition making it impossible to purchase and/or build applications with useful business life cycles.

Enough already...when will someone make JAVA a high performance, non-stop, deployable, administratable, enterprise environment...instead of a geek curiosity. Only IBM seems to understand this, with companies driving the JSR fiasco like SUN and BEA seeming totally clueless about industrial software.

In our opinion, SUN is trashing what might have otherwise become a viable enterprise class environment. It's forcing my company right into the arms of Microsoft....scary.

Never mind generics...how about Metadata, that's been led by .NET and Anders Hejlsberg. Austin here says it's the coolest feature in all Java 5.0!

So, who announced Generics first, Java or C#?

Last time I checked we were on 1.2. Where was I when versions 1.3 through to 4.9 came and went? Ok, so it's really just Java 2, version 5.0.

Whether you're a .NET fan or a Java fan, you can't argue that the .NET team is simply better at naming their product!