PeopleTools 8.48 enables users to develop and maintain PeopleSoft enterprise applications. For the first time, the tools can be used to deploy applications with Oracle's application server and other Oracle middleware such as Oracle's BPEL Process Manager and Oracle's SOA suite.

Oracle merged with PeopleSoft in 2005 and has pledged to unite Oracle and PeopleSoft technologies. But Oracle with PeopleTools 8.48 is emphasizing SOA.

"The SOA angle is we've created a capability to natively expose Web services, standards-based Web services, that can be published directly to any UDDI- or WSDL-based registry, which in essence eliminates the need for an adapter-based approach to connectivity," said Jose Lazeres, senior director of product management at Oracle.

A service such as "create order," for example, can be exposed as a Web service. It can be consumed by Fusion middleware or any other technology that supports Web services specifications such as WS-Addressing, WSRP (Web Services for Remote Portlets), WS-Profile, and WS-Security.

New Web services functionality is enabled through tools such as PeopleTools Service Designer and PeopleTools Integration Broker.