The world's largest commercial distributor of the Linux operating system, Red Hat reported a slower growth in billings than the cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street expected.

Red Hat's billing proxy, which the company defines as total revenue combined with the change in deferred revenue, grew 8 percent to $376 million in the second quarter. However analysts expected billings to grow 14 percent and that announcement caused shares to tumble.

This is now the third quarter in a row that Red Hat has failed to meet analysts’ expectations on deferred revenue and Red Hat's ability to sustain billings growth at a mid-teen percentage rate was questionable.

Regions outside the United States accounted for 43.3 percent of Red Hat's revenue and the outfit said it was expecting third-quarter adjusted earnings of 34-35 cents per share on revenue of about $381-$384 million. Analysts were expecting earnings of 34 cents per share on revenue of $391.5 million.