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Big-data company Cloudera Inc. saw its stock take a beating late Wednesday after posting a wider-than-expected loss for the quarter just gone.

The company, which sells software based on Apache Hadoop and related technologies for data engineering, data warehousing, machine learning and analytics workloads, also came up short on its guidance for the next quarter and full year. It’s forecasting more red ink as it integrates its offerings with those of its recently acquired rival Hortonworks Inc.

Cloudera posted a fourth-quarter loss before certain costs such as stock compensation of 15 cents a share on sales of $144.5 million. That was much worse than the 10-cent it posted in the same quarter a year ago, and fell short of Wall Street’s forecast of an 11 cents per share loss.

The earnings report was Cloudera’s first since closing on its $5.2 billion merger with Hortonworks, though the numbers from this quarter are Cloudera’s alone.

The companies said at the time of the merger they were coming together so they could better take on public cloud rivals such as Amazon Web Services Inc., which sells similar database offerings. “Having completed the merger with Hortonworks, we are now squarely focused on delivering a powerful combined, integrated platform purpose-built for enterprise customers,” Tom Reilly (pictured), Cloudera’s chief executive officer, said in a statement.

Last September, before the merger plans were announced, Cloudera had said it was on track finally to become profitable within the next 12 months. But it seems as if the merger will prevent the combined companies from hitting that milestone anytime soon.

In a conference call, Cloudera officials said they’re expecting a first-quarter loss of between 25 and 36 cents per share on revenue of about $190 million, when the companies will combine their earnings for the first time. For the full year, officials said they expect the combined companies to generate revenue of $855 million.

But Wall Street was expecting a much better performance. Analysts at BTIG told CNBC they were expecting sales of $207 million in the first quarter and $940 million for the full year. Meanwhile, D.A. Davidson analysts told CNBC they were eyeing full-year revenue of $920 million.

The lower-than-expected guidance sent investors scarpering for the exit, as Cloudera’s stock fell more than 14 percent in the after-hours trading session. Update: Shares fared even worse in Thursday trading, falling nearly 20 percent.

“Many may have assumed that Cloudera’s recent acquisition of Hortonworks would have resulted in an immediate, positive effect on the company’s bottom line,” said analyst Charles King of Pund-IT Inc. “That doesn’t appear to be the case and, combined with Cloudera’s cautionary guidance, it has put a hard hit on the company’s shares.”

Despite the stock drop, other tech industry analysts said they were still optimistic that the combined Cloudera/Hortonworks would do better in the long term.

“The good news is that demand for Hadoop remains strong, as it powers many enterprise use cases for next-generation applications,” said Constellation Research Inc. analyst Holger Mueller. “The merger eases concerns of executives who were afraid they might have bet on the wrong horse, as both are now together. The sigh of relief was audible.”

Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group was also bullish on the combined entities’ long-term prospects. He said that the poor guidance was simply the result of their strategic maneuverings.

The main problem, he added, is the companies’ general and administrative expenses, which were higher than expected. These expenses suggest they’re building out their offerings ahead of expected future growth. But strategic moves such as this are often punished by fickle investors, he noted.

“I’d expect this to mitigate over time and the company will be on a more sure footing in the long term,” Enderle said. “But weathering the short-term pressure that this will create will be problematic for the executive team. It is generally far better to sandbag than to miss guidance. Long-term investors will be fine with this, but I expect hedge fund managers will be unhappy with these results.”

Photo: Robert Hof/SiliconANGLE