Red Hat reports its latest quarterly earnings today, and Wall Street analysts will have plenty of numbers to crunch. But despite what the numbers say, the Hatters are taking pride in their recent entry into the Guinness world of records. The unanswered question, however: Is Guinness now the favorite brew at Red Hat HQ?

For the record, Wall Street analysts are expecting Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) to report earnings of 22 cents per share. The earnings report is due shortly after the markets close.

Will there be a surprise? After all, the Raleigh-based Linux giant has surprised analysts in each of the last two quarters with earnings higher than expected:

On June 19, Red Hat reported 24 cents earnings per share; Wall Street expected 22 cents.

On March 27, Red Hat said earnings were 25 cents a share, beating expectations of 21 cents.

Red Hat shares closed down 37 cents Friday at $53.22. Its high over the past 52-weeks is $57.81; the low is $44.91.

The analysts will be slicing and dicing the numbers across Red Hat’s growing variety of products, especially in the “cloud” where it seems a week doesn’t pass without Red Hat Enterprise Linux and related offerings – especially for the “cloud” and big data – being expanded, improved and becoming more ubiquitous in financial markets.

Which brings us to the Guinness record.

Back on Sept. 9, we reported that Red Hat could boast RHEL running on a widely known SAP program called Sybase IQ 16 has crushed the Guinness World Record for loading and indexing big data. RHEL processed 34.3 terabytes per hour compared to the previous record of 14 terabytes.

The Hatters also report that RHEL delivered strong results running on SAP Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise.

The Skinny caught up with Red Hat’s John Terrill in Corporate Communications and asked him about the significance of the record. 

  • Is the Guiness record a standard/achievement a recognized one in the IT sector and if so does this boost RHEL credibility?

 In the IT world, Guinness Records are not necessarily looked at in the same vein as a performance benchmark, like SPEC [Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation], but given the organization’s status as an acknowledged source of credible record-breaking activities, we are very pleased that Red Hat Enterprise Linux was a part of this effort.

  • What firms are most lilkely to use RHEL and the SAP solutions touted in the release – Financial? Big pharma? Banking? All?

Organizations in nearly every industry use Red Hat Enterprise Linux – you can see an excellent sampling of these industries at http://www.redhat.com/resourcelibrary/case-studies/.

  • What sweet spot and/or need is RHEL hitting for executives when incorporated into SAP?

Combining SAP Sybase and Red Hat Enterprise Linux results in a superior foundation for running mission-critical applications, offering top performance (per the Guinness record), security (via Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s SELinux, co-developed by Red Hat with the NSA [National Security Agency] and U.S. DoD [Department of Defense]), and an unparalleled ecosystem of applications to run, all backed and supported by two credible industry leaders: Red Hat, the undisputed leader in commercial Linux, and SAP, a global software giant with more than 230,000 customers.

  • Obviously SAP has rivals. Is RHEL being used by other firms wanting to cash in on the big data opportunities?

Red Hat supports many big data implementation efforts across the IT sector, driven by both in-house project teams and enterprise technology vendors and integrators.

  • Is RHEL developed primarily at one RH outpost or across the company?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a truly global solution, built by contributions from brilliant people in academia, government, corporations and, of course, Red Hat.

Unfortunately, Terrill didn’t answer the last question:

Is it safe to assume Guiness is a bit more popular as an after-work beverage of choice?

Should Red Hat beat the Street again today, however, there will be another reason to toast a brew or two – even if not Guinness.

[RED HAT ARCHIVE: Check out more than a decade of Red Hat stories as reported in WRALTechWire.]