For its fiscal third quarter, the company lost $3.4m, or one cent a share, compared to a loss of $6.5m, or 2 cent, a year ago.
Revenue rose $243.1m from $236.3m last year, beating analysts’ average target of $234.8m.
Driving the company’s improved bottom line was maintenance and subscription revenue, which rose to $124.8m from $117.5m year-over-year.
Notably, the company saw a 77% year-over-year increase in revenue for its Linux Platform Products, which came in at $21m. Linux Platform Products invoicing was $38m, up 95%.
Other subscription revenue saw more modest year-over-year gains: identity and security management revenue rose 2% to $30m from $27m; and systems and resource management sales grew 4% to $35m. Revenue from its workgroup business unit declined 2% to $83m.
We are encouraged by our Linux performance and the market’s continued enthusiasm for our desktop to datacenter strategy, said Novell chief executive Ron Hovsepian, in a statement.
Shares in the company rose more than 2% to close at $6.79 on the Nasdaq. They rallied another 2% or so to $6.95 in after-hours trading.
