Red Hat's red-hot shares climb to 12-year high
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Red Hat is red hot. The software maker's shares are up 19 percent Thursday, hitting a 12-year high, after an earnings report that highlighted how much Red Hat is benefiting from a shift in the way big companies meet their technological needs.
The stock is surging $9.69 to $61.08 in afternoon trading. Red Hat shares hadn't topped $61 since March 2000, also the height of the dot-com boom.
The run-up follows a fourth-quarter earnings report from the Raleigh, N.C., company that was far better than analysts anticipated.
Red Hat Inc. is among a crop of software makers helping companies adapt as more of their technology is stored in far-flung data centers instead of individual machines in their offices. The concept is known as "cloud computing."
