Chennai: Sensing increased opportunity in the country, Red Hat India, the leading Linux applications and open source provider, is doubling its headcount in the country to 100 in the next 12-18 months.

The company, which has offices in five cities in India, will also open an office in Chennai in the next quarter, Javed Tapia, director (India), Red Hat India said in Chennai.

"We have 50 employees in India. We will double the headcount in the next one to one-and-half years," he said, adding Red Hat was also in discussions with some State Governments regarding the implementation of open-source software of Linux in various Government departments.

Already, State Governments including Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra are exploiting the open-source software provided by Linux.

Red Hat India has offices in Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Kolkata and Bhopal. Tapia said the company will soon open an office in Chennai to service the prospective clients in Tamil Nadu, especially the Government sector.

Red Hat India's revenues doubled year-on-year since its entry into India three years back. Tapia said Red Hat was confident of achieving a 26 per cent growth in revenues quarter-on-quarter.

On the potential of Linux in India, he said of the total desktops shipped in the country annually, over 200,000 desktops were run on Linux operating systems.