By Kate Hanaghan, 20 June 2001 15:52
NEWS In an important landmark in the history of open source, Red Hat has actually made a profit. The Linux champion has emerged with an adjusted net income of $600,000 for its latest fiscal quarter, compared with adjusted net losses of $3.7m for the same quarter last year. While other technology companies are reeling in the fallout of the US economic downturn, Red Hat is looking in good shape. Recently, Bob Young, chairman of Red Hat, spoke to silicon.com about his expectation that the company will reach profitability. Young said: "Are we as well a run corporation as we are visionary? I'm convinced the answer is 'yes'. We will make money over the year and continue to grow the business. We've only begun to scratch the surface in deploying this technology." Colin Tenwick, VP and general manager EMEA at Red Hat, said growth in Europe for the period had been strong. "There has been traction in enterprise business and we have seen our services business revenue almost double." The company has also just announced the launch of its imaginatively named Red Hat Database. Asked whether the open source database had any chance against big wigs Oracle and IBM, Robin Bloor of Bloor research said: "The answer has got to be 'no'." Nevertheless, the launch of the mid-market database is a logical expansion of the company's product portfolio. Bloor said: "They need to do it if they want to go forward." In September Red Hat will unveil its ecommerce platform which will see it take on Intershop and Broadvision.
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