The hype cycle was later, though.  Microsoft was the dominant tech company in the late 90s, and they liked to pre-announce software, and so everyone knew by 2000 or so that .NET was coming and was going to be the next big thing.  In 2000 e-commerce was all the rage, but after the consumer Internet melt-down in 2001, a lot of the effort shifted to enterprise, which was where J2EE was marketed.<p>I&#x27;d say peak J2EE was 2002-2003 - it continued to be a factor up through 2007 or so, and probably still is now but the hype has long since passed it by.  .NET had a peak hype cycle around 2000, when it was announced, and also continues to have many satisfied users today but ceased to gain major mindshare right around when Google started ascending in 2004-2005.