diff -r 03b9f30ae729 javafx-common/src/com/sun/javafx/PlatformUtil.java
--- a/javafx-common/src/com/sun/javafx/PlatformUtil.java	Fri Mar 09 14:06:26 2012 +0100
+++ b/javafx-common/src/com/sun/javafx/PlatformUtil.java	Wed Mar 14 07:11:00 2012 +0100
@@ -2,41 +2,69 @@
 * Copyright (c) 2011, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
 */ 
 
-
 package com.sun.javafx;
 
+import java.security.AccessController;
+import java.security.PrivilegedAction;
 
+/**
+ * Utility class for determining what platform we are running on.
+ * This information must be determined during startup, and if there
+ * were a more reliable way to do this in Java other than comparing
+ * strings that we read from System.getProperty we would see some
+ * minor improvement in startup. This determination is made once,
+ * and then each subsequent call to isMac, isWindows, etc is quite
+ * fast.
+ */
 public class PlatformUtil {
-
-    private static final String os = System.getProperty("os.name");
-    private static final String fxPlatform = System.getProperty("javafx.platform");
+    private static final int UNKNOWN=-1, WINDOWS=0, MAC=1, LINUX=2, SOLARIS=3, IOS=4;
+    
+    private static final String OS_NAME = AccessController.doPrivileged(new PrivilegedAction<String>() {
+        @Override public String run() {
+            return System.getProperty("OS.name");
+        }
+    });
+    
+    private static final String FX_PLATFORM = AccessController.doPrivileged(new PrivilegedAction<String>() {
+        @Override
+        public String run() {
+            return System.getProperty("javafx.platform");
+        }
+    });
+    
+    private static final int OS =
+            OS_NAME.startsWith("Darwin") && FX_PLATFORM.equals("iOS") ? IOS :
+            OS_NAME.startsWith("Windows") ? WINDOWS :
+            OS_NAME.startsWith("Mac") ? MAC :
+            OS_NAME.startsWith("Linux") ? LINUX :
+            OS_NAME.startsWith("SunOS") ? SOLARIS : UNKNOWN;
 
     /**
      * Returns true if the operating system is a form of Windows.
      */
     public static boolean isWindows(){
-        return os.startsWith("Windows");
+        return WINDOWS == OS;
     }
 
     /**
      * Returns true if the operating system is a form of Mac OS.
      */
     public static boolean isMac(){
-        return os.startsWith("Mac"); 
+        return MAC == OS;
     }
 
     /**
      * Returns true if the operating system is a form of Linux.
      */
     public static boolean isLinux(){
-        return (os.startsWith("Linux"));
+        return LINUX == OS;
     }
 
     /**
      * Returns true if the operating system is a form of Unix, including Linux.
      */
     public static boolean isSolaris(){
-        return (os.startsWith("SunOS"));
+        return SOLARIS == OS;
     }
 
     /**
@@ -50,7 +78,6 @@
      * Returns true if the operating system is a form of iOS
      */
     public static boolean isIOS(){
-        return os.startsWith("Darwin") && 
-            "iOS".equals(fxPlatform);
+        return IOS == OS;
     }
 }