Why can't application developers use ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) on the Java platform? After all, it's an established standard API for data access.
You can use ODBC; however, ODBC isn't appropriate for direct use from the Java programming language because it uses a C interface. The JDBC API was modeled after ODBC, but, because JDBC is a Java API, it offers a natural Java interface for working with SQL. JDBC is needed to provide a "pure Java" solution for application development.