Red Hat Climbs on Earnings Beat

RALEIGH, N.C. (TheStreet) -- The company with the fancy fedora -- both the trademark hat and the open-source operating system -- saw its shares pop by more than 12% today following a good earnings post on Wednesday.

On Thursday, Red Hat shares were putting on $3.06 at $27.94 in the afternoon.

On late Wednesday afternoon, Red Hat said its sales jumped by 12%, as revenue for the provider of cheaper open=-source options landed at $183.6 million during the second quarter.

"IT organizations continue to move ahead with purchases of high value solutions, and Red Hat is capitalizing on this demand as a result of our strong customer relationships and proven value proposition," CEO Jim Whitehurst said. "These factors contributed to our better-than-expected total revenue in the second quarter, and drove annual subscription revenue growth of 15% for both the quarter and first half of fiscal year 2010."

Profit grew to $28.9 million, or 15 cents per share, as compared to a $21.1 million year-earlier total, or 10 center per share.

Adjusting for one-time items would have brought earnings per share to 20 cents.

According to Thomson Reuters, analysts expected more limited top and bottom lines, centering at 15 cents and $179.1 million in revenue.

Elsewhere, Microsoft shares were gaining 8 cents at $25.79, while Oracle barely slipped into the red by 5 cents at $21.08. -- Written by Sung Moss in New York

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