Hitachi Data Systems to acquire Pentaho

Hitachi Data Systems Corporation (HDS) plans to acquire Pentaho Corporation, a leading big data integration and business analytics company with an open source-based platform for diverse big data deployments.

The acquisition of Pentaho - the largest private big data acquisition transaction to date - is expected to be complete by June 2015, and is subject to customary closing conditions. Upon the close of the acquisition, Pentaho will become "Pentaho, a Hitachi Data Systems company" and will retain its brand. Pentaho will continue to execute its current business model under the leadership of Pentaho CEO, Quentin Gallivan, who will report to Kevin Eggleston, HDS senior vice president, Social Innovation and Global Industries.

This acquisition helps to fulfill Hitachi's strategy of delivering business innovations that integrate machine data, information technology, and analytics to distill value from big data and the Internet of Things. This acquisition is a transformational event for the big data industry, and will accelerate enterprise adoption of big data technologies and solutions through easier, faster deployment, leading to faster ROI.

Pentaho software and expertise will advance the current HDS portfolio of products and services, and help bring additional HDS big data solutions to market sooner. The result will be unique, comprehensive solutions to address specific challenges through a shared analytics platform. The Hitachi shared analytics platform will be a reference architecture that brings together and orchestrates different technologies from Hitachi, partners and the open source community. It will allow developers to add new capabilities on top of existing technologies for faster response to business needs.

"Data remains an untapped resource for many organisations and businesses - with the realisation of the value of that data remaining a challenge," said Kevin Eggleston, senior vice president, Social Innovation and Global Industries, Hitachi Data Systems. "The combination of Hitachi's broad industry expertise, advanced information technologies, and now Pentaho software and the talented team of experts, will enable us to give customers a more complete solution to manage their data - allowing them to leverage the power of big data and Internet of Things in a quicker and simpler way."

"We are pleased to join the Hitachi Data Systems family and truly believe our complementary set of solutions will accelerate the adoption of big data deployments and Internet of Things applications," said Quentin Gallivan, chairman and chief executive officer, Pentaho. "The broad resources, expertise and global presence of Hitachi Data Systems, as well as Hitachi, Ltd., help ensure a strong foundation for Pentaho to continue to accelerate our big data analytics and data orchestration capabilities, bring new innovations to market, and expand support for current and future customers."

Big Data, Analytics and the Internet of Things That Matter
This acquisition builds on an existing OEM relationship between the two companies and is a core component of the HDS strategy to accelerate its Social Innovation business and become a leader in IoT. Social Innovation is the unifying strategy across Hitachi businesses to deliver solutions that enable healthier, safer and smarter societies. The Pentaho vision to create transformational value from data generated and interconnected across people and things is brought to life by a big data orchestration platform to power embedded analytics.

As part of the Hitachi Social Innovation strategy, HDS is actively engaging in the practical use of connected machines and sensors and how IoT can improve business and society - or the Internet of Things that matter. Seamless integration of solutions for big data requires capabilities in several areas, including deep domain expertise, analytics technology, and an end-to-end platform. Hitachi is entirely unique in its ability to deliver on all of these elements.

Pentaho delivers a foundational technology for big data. The fundamental promise of big data is to enable customers to capture, blend and analyse a broader array of data sources to derive new business insights. The Pentaho platform simplifies preparing and blending any data and includes a spectrum of tools that enable users to easily analyse, visualise, explore, report insights and predict outcomes. Pentaho offers a platform that is open, embeddable and extensible, which allows it to deliver data and analytics as a service to customers and partners. The platform is architected to ensure that each member of an organisation's team - from developers and data scientists to business users - can easily translate data into competitive advantage.