Red Hat spends its profits

Company benefits from acquisition of rival

Red Hat: investing internally

Linux vendor Red Hat saw fiscal first-quarter 2009 profit rise 6.6 per cent to $17.3m (£8.7m) from $16.2m as the software distributor saw a growth in software subscription.

Revenue rose 32 per cent to $156.6m in the same quarter from $118.9m in the year ago quarter.

The company said profits had been affected by significant internal investment in engineering, sales and marketing.

Chief executive Jim Whitehurst said the company had benefited from Oracle's acquisition of rival middleware vendor BEA which caused some "dislocation".