Hortonworks: Powering the Future of Data

Hortonworks is a leading innovator in the data industry, creating, distributing and supporting enterprise-ready open data platforms and modern data applications. In 2011, 24 engineers from the original Hadoop team at Yahoo! spun out to form Hortonworks. Headquartered in Santa Clara, the company operates across 19 countries and has more than 2,100 joint engineering, strategic reseller, technology, and system integrator partners.

With a mission to manage the world’s data, Hortonworks is channeling all its resources to achieve this aim. It has a single-minded focus on driving innovation in open source communities such as Apache Hadoop, NiFi, and Spark. Hortonworks’ founding belief is that innovation and adoption of platform technologies like Hadoop are best accomplished through collaborative open source development under the governance model of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). 

“We along with our 1600+ partners provide the expertise, training, and services that allow our customers to unlock transformational value for their organizations across any line of business,” explains the CEO of Hortonworks, Rob Bearden. “Our connected data platforms powers modern data applications that deliver actionable intelligence from all data: data-in-motion and data-at-rest. We are Powering the Future of Data.”

Innovative and Enterprise Ready

Hortonworks stands firmly committed to the notion that innovation happens everywhere. It believes that collaborative sharing and co-innovation are the cornerstones of solutions that are future-proof. The company sees a future where all things are possible with no limits to what it can achieve with data. Hortonworks believes those with an open-minded experimental mentality—not afraid to fail fast so they can learn faster—will lead the charge. “Those who disrupt their industry, their own business are clearly seeing the future and anticipating what’s next,” believes the CEO.

The company believes that every business will be a data business. “Data will power all industries, communities, devices, companies, people -- all of us. This is the future of data,” explains Bearden. As more and more data is born, big and small data spurs the need for more, better, secure enterprise-level infrastructure at scale. The internet of things and consumers demanding secure in-context access provides the fuel for bigger and more complex problems to solve for business. And this is where Hortonworks is making a difference.

Additionally, Hortonworks also hold the opinion that open source spurs innovation. “The more open we are, the more others will be inspired and inventive,” notes Bearden. Nothing beats community-based open innovation in terms of being ready for the future because innovation happens everywhere. Open is the future of data and Hortonworks is the best choice to help businesses unlock its potential.

Architecting the Future

At Hortonworks, it’s the employees who power the future of data - at the forefront of innovation, enabling organizations to use Apache Hadoop for storage and processing of data. Employees help organizations around the world that are starting to deploy Apache Hadoop. They make a positive difference for tens of thousands of people that are leveraging Apache Hadoop software to solve real problems.

That’s not all. The employees thrive in an open work environment. “We believe in openness: open software, open sharing of ideas, and complete openness and transparency of our company’s strategy,” says the CEO. Hortonworks is committed to providing employees with a comprehensive benefits package that includes health and welfare benefits to keep employees and their family healthy and safe. And there’s the additional perk of 100% company paid medical and dental insurance!

Flexible work schedules, unlimited PTO, short and long-term disability insurance, paid volunteer time, and charitable contribution fitness club membership are some of the additional bonuses that Hortonworks offers its employees. At the HQ in Santa Clara, there are also catered lunches, onsite massage therapy, dry cleaning service, and fully stocked kitchen available.

Community for the Enterprise

With 29 out of 114 Apache Hadoop committers, Hortonworks employs the largest group of committers under one roof; more than double of any other company. In order to enable a data platform like Hadoop to be easy to use and enterprise-grade, it’s impossible to do it alone. Hortonworks has established deep joint engineering relationships with most of the strategic data center players its customers rely on. Each of these efforts run through a gauntlet of thousands of certification tests unique to Hortonworks, enabling joint customers to receive the highest quality, integrated solutions for addressing the modern data architecture needs.

“Actionable and predictive intelligence matters. Security and scale matter. Governance and manageability matter. Only organizations that understand and act on this will win,” believes Bearden. Hortonworks sees a future where secure unfettered data access and movement among technologies, applications, and platforms will be a competitive edge. The company supports global organizations 24x7x365 with unmatched expertise, products, and services that provide enterprise-grade security, reliability, and scalability.

Meet the Driving Force of Hortonworks

Rob Bearden is the CEO of Hortonworks. He is also the former chief operating officer of both SpringSource and JBoss, two of the most commercially successful open source companies in history. Bearden also served in senior roles at Oracle, where he directed a $1 billion sales organization, I2 and Manhattan Associates. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management from Jacksonville State University and currently holds the title of Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business.

“This is a world-class team and my colleagues and I get to reset expectations about how data can solve persistent structural barriers in every major industry,” says Justin from Product department.

“Data will power all industries, communities, devices, companies, people -- all of us. This is the future of data.”