Jeffery Kelly – Principal Research Analyst at Wikibon

Hortonworks Inc. has a big chance of winning the race to an initial public offering (IPO) amongst top players in world of Hadoop and Big Data. Jeff Kelly, Principal Research Analyst at Wikibon predicted the company will go public in early 2015. “My gut tells me that we’re looking at the first half of 2015 for an IPO from Hortonworks.” It could be either late first quarter or early second quarter according to Kelly, who mentioned other experts predict an even earlier IPO for the Big Data startup.

The potential IPO means fresh opportunities for investors looking to cash in on Big Data’s buzz, even as top incumbents seek investment markets as well. Oracle Corp. faces disruption from new, open-source models that encroach on its software licensing model, adopting cloud and Big Data services in hopes of recouping market share. According to Kelly, the major challenge for such an investment is that “one of the dynamics in the Big Data space is that people are frustrated by the lock in. They do not want to repeat it.”

If Oracle were to acquire a Hadoop vendor like Hortonworks, it would affect their ability to take on new customers, Kelly explained. The analyst expects that Oracle would continue to grow to some degree, but applying their traditional “lock-in” licensing model to their Big Data investments would create a real problem.

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