Revenue for the quarter was $US37 million, compared to $US33.1 million in the third quarter. It was also a 43 percent increase over the fourth quarter of the previous fiscal year.

The company made an operating profit of $US4.6 million before stock-based compensation.

In the Asia-Pacific region, the company said its staff numbers had nearly doubled and there were now nearly 300 Red Hat certified engineers in Australia.

The RHCE is a certification which Red Hat, the best-known and most widely used commercial Linux distribution, offers from its offices nationwide.

Globally, Red Hat said it had sold 87,000 new subscriptions of which 61,000 went to "the enterprise IT market". Existing subscriptions saw a 90 per cent renewal.

Source: The Age