As we know, Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) is purchasing open source data integration and analytics company Pentaho, a move which has been logically linked to the Japanese conglomerate’s desire to add more big data analytics into its core storage portfolio. As Forbes Contributor Dan Woods has called it, this is the era of the ‘Distributed Data Supply Chain’ where data is processed along various nodes almost like a food or car production line.
Data machining production line processes
Sometimes data is stored, sometimes data in analysed in greater depth, or sometimes it is just passed along to the next node in the distributed data supply chain. Hitachi’s move to snag Pentaho then is something of an affirmation of the need for these ‘data machining processes’ and a move away from prayer at the alter of the all powerful data warehouse.
For its part, Hitachi says that Pentaho adds value its so-called ‘HDS Social Innovation strategy’ because of its data integration, OLAP analytics, visualization and orchestration technologies. Hitachi’s own shared analytics platform (known internally as Aqua) may also warm to Pentaho, one imagines. Hitachi won’t gag on Pentaho’s open source branding either -- it needs to get the open religion better and it knows it.
But will Hitachi look after the users?
Here’s the statement issued by the media team to journalists, “As someone that follows Pentaho so closely, we want to underscore that Pentaho will continue to execute on its current product roadmap. HDS intends to both retain the existing business model that is responsible for the success of Pentaho, and use the technology within its own solutions and services portfolio for its IoT practice ("Social Innovation"). This will include development of new big data services that will go to market in FY15, acceleration of Social Innovation solutions, and integration of the Pentaho technology into the core HDS data integration and analytics platform.”
Hitachi appears to be following the open source theme through and (in related news) has also just signed an agreement with Hortonworks -- the firm that supplies a 100% open source distribution of Apache Hadoop for the enterprise along with training, support & services. Hitachi will ‘jointly promote and support’ Hadoop in a joint engineering commitment according to Hortonworks strategic marketing VP John Kreisa.
Again, it almost sounds like the firms have users in mind -- well, after they sell plenty of lucrative enterprise software licenses of course.
Risk of proprietary sabre-rattling?
Back at Pentaho, news of the acquisition will have no doubt produced initial emotions of celebratory elation, followed by a certain amount of disquiet. Will Hitachi rattle its sabres and kill off Pentaho’s purely open source CE (community edition) software? Pentaho’s community SVP Pedro Alves says no and has blogged to say so.
Alves blogs as follows, “The relationship between the community and a commercial company exists because it’s mutually beneficial. In Pentaho’s case, the community gets access to software it otherwise couldn’t, and Pentaho gets access to [a substantial] amount of resources that contribute to the project [such as bug reports] and improvement suggestions we get out of all the real world tests and discussions on the forums or on the several available email lists. Is anyone, in his or her right mind, willing to let all this go? Nah. Just in case the previous answer wasn’t clear enough, lemme spell it out with all the words: There are no plans of changing our open source strategy or stop providing a CE edition to our community!”
Image credit: Pentaho -- Will Hitachi rattle its sabres and kill off Pentaho’s purely open source CE... [+]
So what happens next? Well, Pentaho will be better funded on the one hand, but ultimately deferential (or at least answerable to) its Japanese masters on the other. Hitachi has it all to gain by keeping the software application development professionals and data engineers that use these products happy and (as evidenced by its work with Hortonworks) it can now build out its portfolio to look more like a data supply chain than a company that churns out a block of modular mid-range and high-end storage systems.
Plain old data warehouse storage just doesn’t cut it any more; data is on a distributed production line. Just pray that open DNA is strong enough to keep the community-to-proprietary balance in check.
Editorial disclosure: Adrian Bridgwater has previously worked on eBook materials with Pentaho.
