Red Hat results reveal open source growth

'Mac daddy' of Linux world posts 12 per cent rise in sales

Hat's off: Red Hat beat Wall Street expectations for its fiscal Q2

The open source market is continuing to tick over nicely, despite the downturn, as Linux pioneer Red Hat unveiled another set of expectation-busting results.

New York-listed Red Hat logged revenue of $183.6m (£113m) for its fiscal second quarter to 31 August, up 12 per cent year on year, as subscription sales swelled 15 per cent.

Net profit for the quarter hit $28.9m, up from $21.1m a year earlier.

Red Hat chief executive Jim Whitehurst said end users were moving ahead with high-value solutions, and that this had contributed to a better-than-expected revenue haul in the quarter.

Chief financial officer Charlie Peters, added: “We are particularly pleased with the growth of the current portion of deferred revenue combined with the lengthening of our average subscription duration.”