Red Hat Q2 Beats Estimates (RHT)

has reported a second-quarter EPS of $0.35, beating the Street's estimate of $0.33 by $0.02. Earnings per share were up 25 percent from the same quarter in 2012. Red Hat's revenue came in at $374 million versus the Street estimate of $372.11 million. Sales were up 16 percent year-over-year. "We are a market leader for new innovations based on open source technologies that are driving the transformation of the data center toward an open, hybrid cloud infrastructure," Jim Whitehurst, President and Chief Executive Officer of Red Hat, said in a

. "We recently added infrastructure-as-a-service, Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform, to our portfolio of cloud offerings. The combination of this powerful technology with our platform-as-a-service, open software-defined storage and cloud management solutions create a compelling road map for our customers in the move to cloud computing." Shares of Red Hat have endured a roller coaster year, rising to a year-to-date high of $56.90 on February 1, 2013. The stock plummeted to $49.39 on February 26, then spiked briefly before dropping further in the spring. Red Hat soared to $54.99 on May 17, but the gains were short-lived. The stock fell to $45.48 on June 6, achieving a new year-to-date low for the company. "We delivered mid-to-high teens growth across several financial metrics including revenue, non-GAAP operating income and operating cash flow," said Charlie Peters, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Red Hat, who was also quoted in a company release. "These results were driven in particular by strong subscription revenue growth, up 17 percent in U.S. dollars and 18 percent in constant currency. The billing proxy, which we define as total revenue plus the change in deferred revenue found on the Statement of Cash Flows, was $376 million, up 8 percent in U.S. dollars and 9% in constant currency. This billings growth reflects modest IT spending in Europe and the impact of large deal arrangements." After hitting rock bottom in the spring, shares of Red Hat have been climbing fairly steadily. It stumbled slightly in August, but it has rebounded in September and is up more than four percent this month. In after hours trading, the stock is down nearly six percent. Disclosure: