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(Reuters) - Red Hat Inc, the world's largest commercial distributor of the Linux operating system, forecast quarterly revenue below analysts' estimates.
The company's shares fell 3 percent in extended trading.
Red Hat's billings growth of 17 percent for the second quarter ended Aug. 31 also disappointed investors, said Derrick Wood, an analyst with Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP.
"Given the recent run in the stock over the last three months, we think investors were expecting modestly stronger upside to consensus billings," Wood said.
Red Hat, which counts Amazon.com Inc, Dell Inc and Alcatel-Lucent SA among its customers, defines its billing proxy as total revenue combined with the change in deferred revenue.
Total revenue increased to $445.9 million (271.33 million pounds) from $374.4 million a year earlier.
Net income rose to $46.8 million, or 25 cents per share, from $40.8 million, or 21 cents per share, a year earlier.
Red Hat forecast third quarter revenue of $449 million-$452 million.
Analysts on average were expecting revenue of $455.5 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Red Hat also said on Thursday it would buy mobile application service provider FeedHenry for about 63.5 million euros ($81.98 million) to expand its portfolio of app development services.
The company's shares closed at $60.66 on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday.
(Reporting by Anya George Tharakan and Sai Sachin R in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das)