Red Hat earnings call: Subscriptions up 44% and rising

I've said it before: open source needs Red Hat to succeed. Fortunately for those of us in the open source world, it has/is/will. As can be seen in its latest earnings announcement, Red Hat is proving that you can make a lot of money by giving software away.

Total revenue for the quarter was $118.9 million, an increase of 42% from the year ago quarter and 7% from the prior quarter. Subscription revenue was $103.0 million, up 44% year-over-year and 7% sequentially.

Net income for the quarter was $16.2 million, or $0.08 per diluted share, compared with $13.8 million, or $0.07 per diluted share, in the year ago quarter. Non-GAAP adjusted net income for the quarter was $33.7 million, or $0.16 per diluted share, after adjusting for stock compensation and tax expense as detailed in the tables below. This compares to non-GAAP adjusted net income of $28.0 million, or $0.14 per diluted share, in the year ago period.

Non-GAAP operating cash flow, as detailed in the tables below, totaled $52.3 million for the quarter. Total cash, cash equivalents, and investments as of May 31, 2007 were $1.2 billion. At quarter end, Red Hat's total deferred revenue balance was $363.1 million, an increase of 43% year-over-year and 7% sequentially.

Unfortunately, I'm on a flight at 5:00 EDT and so will miss the call, which is where the best information comes out. But it's nice to see that Red Hat doesn't need to do anything to pad or craft its numbers: they look good all by themselves. 44% growth in subscription revenue. That is fantastic. That's money that Microsoft can't buy. ;-)