Open-source software specialist Red Hat’s second-quarter sales of $99.7m (£52.8m) show a 52 per cent growth from last year, according to financial results released last week.

Red Hat’s figures also included a 56 per cent rise in subscription sales and outstripped the firm’s own earlier predictions.

The growth was driven by a 90 per cent rise in sales of Enterprise Linux through the reseller channel and the development of an integrated Linux Application Stack, says the company.

Unadjusted net profits for the quarter rose to $23.7m (£12.5m) from $17.7m (£9.4m) for the same period last year.

The company’s focus in the second quarter was on integrating recent acquisitions, says chief financial officer Charlie Peters.

‘We are pleased with the pace and progress of our integration work and believe results in subsequent quarters will benefit from the investments in staff time and expense,’ he said.

‘Revenue grew nicely and we expect the introduction of the Red Hat Application Stack to help continue that trend.

‘Operating results and cash flow will improve in the second half of fiscal 2007,’ he said.

The company’s better-than-expected sales demonstrate demand for open-source systems, says Dion Cornett, Red Hat vice president of investor relations.

‘The strength in hardware revenue growth stands in stark contrast to the reported weakness of server suppliers,’ he said.

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