Redhat reports profit

Red Hat sold over 132,000 subscriptions to its Red Hat Enterprise Linux release, generating a Q3 profit of $10.8 million. Although a significant proportion of these licences discounted on price for large volume sales to purchasing businesses, the company had set itself higher sales targets. However, the revenue reported shows a company maturing, with over 6cents per share being returned to investors.

Interestingly enough, in Red Hat pulls out a profit, Chief Executive Matthew Szulik apparently:

preferred to tout deferred revenue–the subscription money that customers have pledged to pay but that Red Hat hasn’t yet recognized. Deferred revenue increased to $121.4 million in the quarter, a 22 percent increase of $99.7 million from three months earlier and a 170 percent increase from $45.1 million from the year-earlier quarter.

Either way, a company finding its feet and growing healthily.