Did you hear about Spring? In my opinion, it is going to play a big role in J2EE and simplifying Java programming. At least when it comes to transactional applications, things are much simpler than with EJB.
Have a look for yourself: TSS was kind enough to publish my presentation on Spring.
4 Microservice Myths and How to Avoid Them
High performance JMS processing with XA
Transactions for the REST of us
Transactions for SOA