Red Hat is to buy back more shares after reporting a record fourth quarter. The Linux distro pulled in revenues of $57.5m for the three months to 28 February 2005, 56 per cent up on last year, and net income of $11.8m, 200 per cent up on Q4 04.

Enterprise subscription revenue was $45.4m, 92 per cent higher year on year. According to Red Hat this vindicates the firm's recurring revenue model, which generates six times more turnover than that of the number two Linux provider (presumably Novell/SUSE). It bases this estimate on "publicly available information".

The company ended the year with cash and investments of $928m, and that was after spending $54.8m to repurchase stock. Deferred revenues looks good too, with the company owed $137.3m at the end of the year. This is 86 per cent higher than the end of FY ’04.

For the full year, Red Hat reports cash flow from operations of $122.2m, 100 per cent more than FY04. The company is to buy up to another $150m in shares and retire $50m in debentures, to offset dilution caused by employee stock options and convertible debt.

More here. ®

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