Red Hat beats earning estimates in Q2

Red Hat Wednesday slightly topped analysts' estimates by posting revenue for the fiscal-2009 second quarter of $164.4 million

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had been expecting $163.6 million from the Linux and open source software vendor.

Red Hat's second-quarter revenue represents a 29% increase over the same quarter a year ago. The company's subscription revenue also posted double-digit growth compared to last year's fiscal second quarter, rising 24% to $135.7 million.

Net income for the quarter was $21.1 million, a nearly 16% increase from the $18.2 million in the same quarter a year ago.

During the company's earnings call with financial analysts, Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst said the vendor continues "to see strong renewal and up-sell from our customer base. Cost savings is resonating well."

The company's JBoss middleware business is growing at a rate that is more than twice that of Red Hat's platform business anchored by the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system, Whitehurst said.

The company's goal going forward is to be a leader in the emerging virtualization market, Whitehurst said, and he pointed to the acquisition of desktop virtualization vendor Qumranet as an example of the company's commitment.

Overall, "it was a productive quarter," Whitehurst said.