Novell Wednesday reported the net income loss for the third quarter of its 2007 fiscal year fell by nearly 50% compared to the same quarter last year, and the company said revenue was up nearly 3% to $243 million.

American Linux distributor Red Hat has announced its first quarter financial results, which show an increase in total revenue and subscription revenue by 20 per cent over same quarter last year

Novell's Linux business is keeping the company buoyant in trying economic times, the company's third-quarter earnings indicate. On Thursday, the software maker published its third-quarter results, which revealed that revenue from its Linux platform products had increased 22 percent, year-on-year, to US$38 million.

Tightening of the belt has seemingly paid off for Novell. The enterprise earned 38 million USD in the last quarter with Linux products. Novell’s turnover for the third quarter this year is lower than that of the third quarter last year, but the figures are still in the black. Novell closed out 2009’s third quarter with a profit of 17 million USD.

At the close of trading Thursday, Microsoft announced the results for its second quarter of fiscal year 2010, which ended December 31, 2009. Revenue of $19.02 billion, a 14 percent increase from the same period of the prior year, set a new a record for the company.

"The introduction of a new version of its Linux distribution and new JBoss software helped Red Hat Inc. increase profit to US$16.2 million, or $0.08 a share, on revenue of $118.9 million, in its fiscal first quarter ended May 31, the company reported Wednesday."

Linux servers posted the fifth consecutive quarter of accelerating revenue growth, with year-over-year revenue growth of 19.0%, for a total of $1.8 billion in the quarter. Linux servers now represent 13.6% of all server revenue, up from 12.1% a year ago.

Novell beat Wall Street's estimates with a solid third quarter, but the real story is in its continued Linux growth. Net revenue rose to $245 million from $237 million in 2007, but Novell's third-quarter loss quadrupled to $15.1 million from $3.7 million in 2007.

Linux distributor Novell has published the financial results of its second fiscal quarter of 2010. Compared to the second quarter of 2009, net revenue fell slightly from $216 million to $204 million