Linux distributor Red Hat made a $15.5m GAAP profit in the last quarter, well down on the profit of $24.6m it made for the same period last year.

Revenues were up though, and slightly outpaced market expectations, climbing 45 per cent on the firm's fiscal Q3 2006 to $105.8m. Red Hat said it added 12,000 net new customers in the three months to 30 November.

Red Hat's finance chief Charlie Peters described the performance as "solid", and the firm said integration of April's middleware purchase (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/10/redhat_buys_jboss/) JBoss is going swimmingly. At its last earnings call, analysts begged to differ (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/27/red_hat_jboss_q2_2006_earnings/).

The firm's share price is yet to recover from the pasting it took this year thanks to Larry Ellison's decision to steamroller Oracle onto its maintainance territory, but enjoyed a 13 per cent spike on the results in after hours trading yesterday. ®

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