Be's share price rocketed on Thursday amid rumours that it was about to be acquired by Linux supplier, Red Hat Software.

The move follows similar speculation at the start of the month that Red Hat was in discussions with Canadian applications vendor, Corel. The firm also purchased Cygnus for $674 million in November to boost its consultancy presence in the handheld market in a bid to take on Microsoft.

Be's stock price hike came after Charles Payne, president of Wall Street Strategies, said in a report to customers that he had heard the takeover rumours "on the grapevine".

As a result, the operating system vendor's share price jumped $12.3125 to close at $37.5625. But Frank Boosman, vice president of marketing, said it was company policy not to comment on stock price movements or acquisition rumours.

Be, which only floated its first stock in July at $6 per share, has since seen the price jump ninefold, following a pronouncement by the judge in the Microsoft antitrust trial that the software giant held a monopoly over the desktop operating system market. The BeOS is currently used as an alternative to Windows in some markets.

Red Hat was unavailable for comment.