Red Hat credits cloud for third-quarter growth

Red Hat has enjoyed a positive financial third quarter due to interest in cloud computing and virtualisation, the company announced in a statement on Tuesday.

The company's total revenue for the period was $235.6m (£152.6m), a 21-percent increase in comparison to third quarter 2009 results.

A 21 percent year-on-year increase in subscription earnings contributed to the increase in revenues, the company said.

Total subscription revenues amounted to $198.8m for the fiscal third quarter. Non-GAAP net income also rose in a year-on-year comparison with 2009, up from $33.5m to $39.1m, or $0.20 per diluted share.

Red Hat said its acquisition of cloud applications specialists Makara — announced on 30 November — will accelerate the development of its platform-as-a-service plans as part of its Cloud Foundations portfolio.

"We are well positioned at the confluence of several hot areas of IT; open source, virtualisation and cloud computing. In addition, we are executing consistently and we are making focused investments in growth initiatives," Charlie Peters, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Red Hat, said in a statement.