The company named Rob Levy as its CTO this week. Having most recently served as BEA executive vice president of new product strategy, Levy replaces Mark Carges, who became vice president in charge of the company's new Business Interaction Division, which focuses on portals.

"From a technology perspective, we're looking to continue to drive innovation and make sure we keep our lead in SOA," and think ahead to where the company needs to go, Levy said. Assessing the potential for new technologies will be critical, according to Levy.

BEA's application server, however, will remain front and center. The application server business is still growing and BEA continues to pursue it, Levy said.

"We see great opportunities in supplementing our application server market," with opportunities such as portals, Levy said.

Open source application servers such as the JBoss application server have become popular lately, but BEA is undaunted by open source. "I see it, I embrace it. Because at the end, I believe that open source will find its proper way to be an offering for the enterprise," Levy said.