Remember, the goal here is to try to make things better. ;-)

And your plan for making things better: Java.

shudder

Well, there are JVMs and native compilers for the embedded market, able to target less powerful boards, hence cheaper design per unit, with much more performance out of the box.

Yeah, I pointed some of those out to him... but I don't think that's what he's getting at.

That's not my plan. I just wouldn't have been surprised by the choice.