Open cloud provider Rackspace has announced healthy first quarter results, with CEO Graham Weston telling investors that his company will continue to differentiate from the price slashing of AWS, Google and Microsoft.

For the quarter ending March 31, Rackspace posted a net revenue figure of $421m, up from $408m at the end of Q413 and representing a 16% year on year increase.

Income fell year on year from $27.2m to $25.4m, but Q114 figures represented a boost from the fourth quarter trough of $20.8m income – a percentage increase of 22% per quarter. Adjusted EBIDTA also went up from Q413, $140m representing a 5.8% spike.

Looking at the nuts and bolts, Rackspace added 2343 servers in the first quarter of 2014, and gained 92 new employees.

It was a pretty good showing, with Reuters reporting that Rackspace shares rose by up to 12% after the bell trading …