EJB 3 represents a nine-year journey, Roth said. The original vision was about persistence: the ability to save a programming object to a database. The technology is applicable to any application that talks to a database, including banking, decision support, and OLTP applications.

With EJB 3, proponents sought to make persistence transparent; until now, it has been more difficult than it should be, Roth said.

But Java persistence is a "niche technology right now," Willett said.

"It's an area where they have to keep up. Oracle's been pretty aggressive with TopLink in promoting EJB 3," Willett said. JBoss also has focused on EJB 3 with its Hibernate offering, he said.

"It's one of the things that you need, to show that you're innovating and on the cutting edge," Willett said.