EJB 2.1 application servers, such as JBoss 4, already support web services. A function in a stateless session bean can be invoked using RMI and SOAP. Good grief, you don't think I write stateful session beans, do you? It's not good that you have to wait for spec v3 till you don't need a third party code generator but it means the framework is starting to mature. I'd say that means it'll still be viable in 5 years time except the aforementioned pain of separate deployments will prompt a better system.