Yes, it is extremely difficult to predict which technologies will win over a 5-10 year period vs their competitors. Eg, predicting that jQuery would appear vs the evolution of some other system (ExtJS?).
On the other hand, predicting what changes will occur to a legacy enterprise system tend to be much easier.
In the overall scope of things, Java hasn't really changed that much over the past five years. I think that some long-range planning of the kinds of changes they are thinking about actually makes sense. The need for closures, reified generic types, and an improved type system is unlikely to change in the next 5-10 years.
On the other hand, predicting what changes will occur to a legacy enterprise system tend to be much easier.
In the overall scope of things, Java hasn't really changed that much over the past five years. I think that some long-range planning of the kinds of changes they are thinking about actually makes sense. The need for closures, reified generic types, and an improved type system is unlikely to change in the next 5-10 years.