I haven't followed Red Hat much for the past 7 years, but saw this headline and thought it noteworthy that the company survives here in 2008! Who knew you could make so much money selling free software?
(Yes, I know they sell services... bah).
RHT up over 7% afterhours.
Before we go to the news, lets go to the RHT message board at Yahoo! Noteworthy messages:
- Trade4ezmoney says: Gap up in the morning, $20 and $21 by monday!
- cpasific says: Watch it drop like oracle, it sucks!
- yenoham2000 says: Great quarter, MORONS!
Red Hat Inc. said Thursday its fourth-quarter profit rose 7 percent as the software distributor worked to expand the footprint of its open source products with costly internal investments.
The Raleigh-based company said it earned $22 million, or 10 cents per share, in its first quarter under new CEO James Whitehurst, compared to $20.5 million, also 10 cents per share, a year earlier.
Red Hat said its revenue rose 27 percent to $141.5 million in the quarter ending Feb. 29.
Whitehurst said Red Hat is positioned to benefit from any economic downturn as the company pitches its free software to organizations looking to cut their tech budgets.