Red Hat record revenue
By Asha

Red Hat, which specializes in Linux and Open Source technology, has reported record revenue for the last quarter.

Red Hat which says its genesis was in working out a better way to build software - openness, transparency, collaboration – is poised to become the first pure play Linux / Open Source company to touch revenue of $1 Billion.

Red Hat financials highlights for Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2011 results were: Total revenue for the quarter was $244.8 million, an increase of 25% from the year ago quarter. Subscription revenue for the quarter was $209.3 million, up 24% year-over-year. For the full year, total revenue was $909.3 million, an increase of 22% over the prior year, and subscription revenue was $773.4 million, up 21% year-over-year.

"With record bookings and billings in the fourth quarter, we are on a run rate to become the first pure-play open source company to achieve a billion dollars in revenues next fiscal year, a milestone achievement for Red Hat and the open source community," stated Jim Whitehurst, President and Chief Executive Officer of Red Hat. "We believe the strong demand we experienced was largely driven by customers who are modernizing their data centers and preparing their infrastructure for cloud computing. The comprehensive portfolio that Red Hat has developed with platform, virtualization and middleware products provides enterprise customers with a foundation to deploy the next generation infrastructure."

GAAP net income for the fourth quarter was $33.5 million, or $0.17 per diluted share, compared with $26.0 million, or $0.13 per diluted share, for the prior quarter and $23.4 million, or $0.12 per diluted share, in the year ago quarter.