Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

I'd sort of assumed it had to do with the bits they were getting from Sun, and how much of it is assembly, although that doesn't entirely wash, since their license presumably entitles them to both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Hotspot for Intel. Also, I've asked and been told there really isn't very much assembly in Hotspot.

Still, back when Apple did JavaOne BoFs, they complained openly about having to support many VMs (as of 2005, it was 1.3, 1.4, and 5 on PPC, 1.4 and C1 and C2 for 5 on Intel). Maybe this is coming out of that mindset, drawing a line in the sand to say "look, right now we only sell 64-bit Intel, haven't sold anything but 64-bit Intel for a year now, and that's the only thing we're supporting now and going forward."

Java's not the only thing getting left behind on 32-bit. Carbon's in the same boat, and to end users, that's a much bigger deal in the long run.