It appears the strategic partnership that Hewlett-Packard and Hortonworks currently have will be continuing. According to the companies, HP is to extend its support for the big data company, which plans to go public next year, with a $50 million equity investment.
That investment should help Hortonworks, which runs the Hadoop component of HP's big-data HAVEn platform, to continue to innovate and develop its data solutions.
In a joint statement from the two companies, HP's Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Martin Fink will be joining Hortonworks' board of directors. It's a move that should deliver much-needed expertise in the data cloud world, where Fink leads HP's cloud business.
Hadoop is the popular open source software framework that allows users to store and process massive amounts of data, which other compressors are unable to accomplish. It has become the leading means for companies to send large files to others.
"The ability to understand data and put it to effective use is now more crucial than ever," said Colin Mahony, general manager of HP Vertica.
"Hortonworks has demonstrated outstanding dedication and expertise in addressing the business and technology needs of its customers within this new era of information and data, and we look forward to partnering with the Hortonworks team to deliver innovative big data solutions to our customers."
The two companies will also extend and increase their go-to-market partnership as part of the agreement to extend their relationship.
With Big Data becoming an increasingly important aspect of the tech world, the partnership shows that interest is continuing to snowball, and investors are expecting top-dollar returns.
"We are extremely pleased to work more closely with HP to accelerate our joint customers' transition to a modern data architecture," said Rob Bearden, CEO of Hortonworks. "Through deep integration with Enterprise Apache Hadoop, HP customers will be able to easily build their next generation of applications with the Hortonworks Data Platform."
Hortonworks has raised over $100 million as it prepares for its public launch. It is the only existing 100 percent open source software provider that develops, distributes and supports the Apache Hadoop platform. The partnership with HP gives the company more support as it continues to increase its investments.
