A brief history of Java EE

Formerly called J2EE, the first version of Java EE platform was officially released in December 1999 with 10 specifications. Among these specifications, there were Servlets and JavaServer Pages (JSP) for data presentation, Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) for the management of persistent data, remote access to business services through RMI-IIOP (Remote Method Invocation over Internet Inter-ORB Protocol), and the JMS (Java Message Service) specification, which was used to send messages.

Despite efforts and many contributions, early versions of Java EE were too complex and difficult to implement. This led to much criticism and caused the rise of competing frameworks such as Spring Framework.

Having drawn lessons from its previous failures, the platform has considerably evolved over time until the production of Java EE 5, which permitted the platform to regain its lost esteem. From this version, Java EE continues to provide easier, richer, and more powerful versions of the platform.

The preceding diagram gives an overview of the important changes made to Java EE platform since the release of the first version in December 1999. This diagram highlights the release dates, updates, and major improvements in each version. It also allows us to have an idea about the central theme behind each version.