The Raleigh software company said the purchase of 140-employee Amentra will complement its JBoss middleware division, which sells software that integrates various business functions.

Amentra, which has offices in Washington, Philadelphia, Charlotte, Tampa and Richmond, provides services and consulting.

"This brings a major service component to our existing suite of products," said Craig Muzilla, vice president for Red Hat's middleware business unit. "We didn't have a core consulting capability, so this gives us a foundation for services that will help drive the sale of more JBoss software products."

Raleigh-based Red Hat is the world's largest maker of Linux-based software for business operating systems. It bought JBoss in 2006 to expand its middleware capability.

Muzilla said Red Hat will keep all of Amentra's employees and offices and operate the company as an independent services subsidiary.