Ericsson and Sun invented their own languages. If your a tool company, treating language as off-limits seems limiting.

You have a point, I guess I'm more flabbergasted by the particular language they chose to invent. Also, Fog Creek ain't exactly Ericsson or Sun.

Fog Creek probably had more resource than Yukihiro Matsumoto, Larry Wall, and Guido van Rossum did.

Ruby, Perl, and Python weren't meant to be in-house languages created to support a commercial product. Not to mention that in their infancies as hobby projects, they didn't have to hit sales deadlines.