CORRECTED - UPDATE 1-Red Hat Q2 earnings beat Street

(Corrects to Wednesday, last paragraph) (Recasts; adds details)

Sept 24 (Reuters) - Red Hat Inc (RHT.N), the world's largest publicly traded provider of Linux software, posted a quarterly profit that beat Wall Street targets, helped by strong growth in its subscriptions business.

Net income for the second quarter rose to $22 million, or 10 cents a share, from $19.1 million, or 9 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter. Excluding special items, earnings were 20 cents a share.

Revenue rose 29 percent to $164.4 million, which exceeded Red Hat's own forecast of $162 million to $164 million. Revenue from subscriptions, by far its biggest division, rose 19.5 percent.

Analysts on an average were looking for earnings of 18 cents a share, excluding special items, on revenue of $163.6 million, according to Reuters Estimates.

Red Hat's version of Linux for server computers, which is it's best-selling product, competes with Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) Windows software and Unix software from Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N) and International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N).

Shares of Raleigh, North Carolina-based Red Hat closed at $17.90 Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange. (Reporting by Shrutika Verma in Bangalore; Editing by Pratish Narayanan)