In a stunning move that is likely to shape the Big Data space for years, Intel recently decided to partner with Cloudera to support its Hadoop distribution rather than enhancing Intel’s own Hadoop distribution. Cloudera will optimize its Hadoop distribution (CDH) to work with Intel’s hardware technology and Intel, conversely, will promote CDH as the Hadoop distribution of choice of enterprise Big Data analytics and the internet of things. Meanwhile, Intel will contribute insights from its own Hadoop distribution to Cloudera’s Hadoop distribution (CDH) and the resulting integration will be rendered available as part of Cloudera’s open source Hadoop initiatives. The partnership between Intel and Cloudera also featured an equity investment by Intel between $740M to $760M that translates into an 18% ownership stake in Cloudera. The $740M invested by Intel brings Cloudera’s recent funding raises to roughly $900M subsequent to its $160M funding raise in mid-March. Intel will join Cloudera’s board of directors and become “Cloudera’s largest strategic shareholder.” According to its press release, Intel’s investment in Cloudera represents Intel’s “single largest data center technology investment in its history.” Intel’s strong presence in countries such as India and China where Cloudera has thus far failed to gain traction means that the partnership stands to dramatically expand Cloudera’s global market share significantly. More importantly, however, Intel’s deep integration with the technologies in almost every datacenter worldwide render it a formidable ally for Cloudera to fulfill its aspiration of becoming the leading Hadoop distribution in the world in ways that promise to transform computing hardware as well as the Hadoop distributions that integrate with Intel’s Xeon technology.
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