Red Hat posts Q2 profit of $21m

Red Hat has reported strong demand for products and services

Red Hat, the largest provider of Linux software, has posted a 16 per cent rise in Q2 2008 profits to $21.1m (£11.5m) from $18.2m (£10m) in the year ago quarter.

Revenues totalled $164.4m (£89.4m), up 29 per cent from $127.3m (£69.2m) in the same quarter a year ago.

"Our performance this quarter demonstrated strong demand for our products and services, good execution and the consistency of results afforded by our subscription business model," said Charlie Peters, chief financial officer at Red Hat.

"Key factors to our growth include the value message, the cost efficiencies of open source solutions and our world-class customer service."

In early September, Red Hat announced the acquisition of Qumranet which is expected to accelerate the time-to-market to deliver an expanded virtualisation solution portfolio to the rapidly growing virtualisation market.

"Our goal is to deliver a comprehensive virtualisation solution from server to desktop which will enable our customers to deploy any application, anywhere, anytime," said Jim Whitehurst, chief executive at Red Hat.