Red Hat, the Raleigh software company with a booming business, gave its top executives modest annual raises this week.

CEO Jim Whitehurst's base salary rose to $775,000, for example, a 3 percent increase, Red Hat reported in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing today. Chief financial officer Charlie Peters and others got similar raises.

The base salaries are just a small part of the executives' total compensation. Whitehurst also could receive a bonus of up to $775,000 if Red Hat meets various financial and other goals, plus other pay.

Last year, Whitehurst made $8.97 million, including $7.16 million in stock awards, Red Hat disclosed in a previous SEC filing. That made him one of the Triangle's highest paid CEOs.

WRAL will air a documentary tonight in which CEOs of three North Carolina tech companies reveal the secrets to success.

The CEOs of Cree, Red Hat and SAS reveal how their companies earned billions while others went belly up.  The program is hosted by WRAL News anchor Gerald Owens.

One stakeholder expects Red Hat to remain in Raleigh.

The software company is considering its options for new space in Durham, Atlanta, Austin and downtown Raleigh, setting off a frenzy among elected officials, economic boosters and real-estate developers. Another option would be to expand its existing headquarters on N.C. State's Centennial Campus.

"If I were a betting man, I bet they'll stay," said Ira R. Weiss, dean of N.C. State's Poole College of Management.

Of course, that's only one man's opinion. But he has more than a passing interest in the matter.

Red Hat, the Raleigh-based software company that's sitting on more than $1 billion in cash, will use some of that money to buy a California company.

Red Hat announced this morning that it will buy Makara, a Redwood City, Calif.-based developer of software for so-called cloud computing.

Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

Red Hat reported another solid quarter, as the Raleigh software company continues to win new customers worldwide.

The company reported earnings per share of 19 cents for the quarter ended Aug. 31, beating Wall Street expectations by 1 cent. Revenue rose to $219.8 million, up 20 percent from a year earlier.

Red Hat hasn't missed earnings per share estimates for 23 straight quarters, reports Bloomberg News.

Company officials also raised their revenue expectations for the full year, to $877 million to $885 million, up from $835 million to $850 million.

Red Hat shares, up 45 percent in the past year, closed today at $36.75, down $1.68. In late trading after the earnings were released, the stock rose more than $1.

Red Hat earnings reports have become pretty predictable. And on Wall Street, boring is good.

The Raleigh software company is expected to report earnings per share of about 18 cents later today. Not one of the 23 analysts who follow Red Hat's stock expect anything less.

That's partly because of Red Hat's recent track record: It hasn't missed earnings per share estimates for 22 straight quarters, reports Bloomberg News. The company also has beat revenue estimates for 17 of the past 22 quarters, including the past five.

Red Hat named retired Army Gen. Hugh Shelton as its new chairman.

Shelton, 68, a Tarboro native and N.C. State alumnus, has been a director at the Raleigh-based software company since 2003.

He replaces former Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik, who stepped down as the company's chairman this month.

Forget trying to build a better mouse trap. Build a better business model instead.

That's the key to building a billion-dollar business from scratch, Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst told a group of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists this afternoon at the annual CED Venture Conference held in Pinehurst.

Raleigh-based Red Hat didn't succeed because it created better software. On the contrary, the Linux open source software was created by a worldwide community of software developers even before Red Hat existed.

What Red Hat did do, Whitehurst said, is devise an innovative way to sell free software that clicked with corporate customers because it solved a problem they faced: ever-changing software for critical operations, including new features they may not even want.

The White House is wild about Jim Whitehurst.

Or so it might seem, as the CEO of Raleigh-based Red Hat visits Washington today for a State Department roundtable on U.S./Asia-Pacific relations. He was one of 30 CEOs invited by secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

Such invites are becoming old hat for Whitehurst, who attended a White House jobs forum in December.

Today's group is likely to talk about a wide range of topics, including Google's standoff with China over online censoring, and how that dispute could hurt opportunities in that country. In addition, the business and government leaders will offer opinions on how U.S. could improve economic relations with that part of the world.

Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst attended the White House jobs summit with "modest expectations," but came away optimistic that the Obama administration will take action to help businesses start hiring again.

"I didn't hear any new, brilliant ideas that haven't been brought up before, but we focused on taking those ideas to reality," Whitehurst said by phone from the Washington airport.

Participants broke into groups, and Whitehurst's team discussed proposals such as research and hiring tax credits, and how much would be needed to spur companies to expand.

"A lot of this is bailing water," he said. The administration "wants to bring unemployment down fast."