Fleury also lashed out at BEA Systems over reports that BEA turned down an opportunity to acquire JBoss. He said he would have never sold to BEA.

JBoss itself is financially health, Fleury said. Red Hat in a statement said it expects JBoss to achieve $48 million in revenue in 2006 and $80 million in 2007. Although the company had "negative free cash flow" of $5.3 million in 2005, revenues are growing faster than expenses, according to Red Hat.

JBoss's acquisition by Red Hat has raised questions about IBM's close relationship with Red Hat, given that IBM offers middleware that competes with JBoss. Fleury, however, expects IBM to continue working with Linux vendors.

"The feeling I get from the Red Hat side is this should not effect [the Linux business]," Fleury said.

He also hopes to continue working with Microsoft, which also is a competitor with Red Hat. Microsoft and JBoss announced an interoperability arrangement in September.