Cloudera-Hortonworks Merger a Done Deal

Former rivals Cloudera and Hortonworks are kicking off the new year with news of a completed merger. The two companies initially announced plans for a $5.2 billion tie-up back in October. 

The vendors contend that by joining forces they’ve created an open-source powerhouse to build the industry’s first enterprise data cloud from the edge to AI. 

Cloudera’s Tom Reilly

“Today, we start an exciting new chapter for Cloudera as we become a leading enterprise data cloud provider,” said Tom Reilly, CEO of Cloudera. “This combined team and technology portfolio establish the new Cloudera as a clear market leader with the scale and resources to drive continued innovation and growth.” 

The two open-source vendors both focus on Hadoop distributions, but Cloudera’s vision is to become an enterprise data cloud provider on a 100 percent open-source data platform.  

When the merger was first announced, Cloudera’s Reilly was slated for the CEO slot; Hortonworks COO Scott Davidson would serve as COO; Hortonworks’ chief product officer, Arun Murthy, would serve as CPO; and Cloudera’s chief financial officer, Jim Frankola, would retain his title. Hortonworks CEO Rob Bearden was set to join the board of directors. 

Open source got a lot of attention in 2018. At the same time the Cloudera-Hortonworks merger was announced, IBM announced its planned acquisition of Linux and open-source vendor Red Hat, Microsoft acquired GitHub and Salesforce purchased MuleSoft. 

Channel Futures Todd R. Weiss contends that open source is maturing and is poised for more love from channel partners in 2019.

Cloudera executives on Jan. 10 plan to discuss how the new company will accelerate innovation and deliver the enterprise data cloud.