J2EE is a commonly used acronym for Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition. To understand this acronym, one should know that a platform is the underlying system on which application programs run. It is a computer application used to create a virtual environment (a virtual machine) which translates computerized instructions into functions. The Java Platform was developed to simplify application development and reduce programming costs by creating standardized and reusable modular components and by enabling automatic handling of many aspects of programming. The “EE” stands for Enterprise Edition, which is one of three forms of the Java Platform, the other forms being the Micro Edition (Java ME), designed for mobile phones and PDAs and the Standard Edition (Java SE), which runs on laptops, desktops and mobile devices. The Enterprise Edition features all of the functionalities of the Java ME and Java SE and in addition includes routines specifically designed for servers and mainframes. The “2” stands for version two, which is the current version of the platform.