Big data company Hortonworks Inc. delivered a solid third-quarter performance in what should be one of its last earnings calls ahead of its supposed “merger of equals” with rival firm Cloudera Inc.

The Santa Clara, California-based company, which sells an enterprise-grade version of the Apache Hadoop software framework along with other open-source tools, reported a net loss of 39 cents per share on revenue of $87.2 million, up 26 percent from a year ago. Losses before certain costs such as stock compensation came in at 6 cents per share.

The results easily beat Wall Street’s expectations of a 12 cents per share loss. Hortonworks said support subscriptions generated the bulk of its revenue at $65.3 million, while professional-services revenue came in at $21.7 million.

“We are pleased with our third-quarter performance, which builds on top of the significant progress we have made during the first half of 2018,” Hortonworks Chief Executive Rob Bearden (pictured) said in a conference call.

Hortonworks had been on a solid run even before the announcement of its proposed merger with Cloudera last month, beating consensus earnings-per-share estimates in four of its last five quarters. The company has also beaten consensus estimates on revenue in five straight quarters.

The forthcoming merger, which is more of an acquisition by the somewhat larger Cloudera, is scheduled to close in the first quarter of 2019 and therefore overshadows Hortonwork’s latest quarter. Once complete, the deal will mean that the newly combined company has perhaps the biggest independent presence in big-data software and services, potentially allowing it to raise prices and move to profitability faster after years of bleeding cash.

The prospect of higher profits helped drive Hortonworks’ stock price up by more than 10 percent following the merger announcement. But any investors who might have been hoping for further clarity regarding the deal were left disappointed in Hortonwork’s conference call today, with executives refusing to take questions from analysts on the matter.

Instead, in prepared remarks, Bearden spoke optimistically of the new company’s “growth potential,” adding that he was encouraged about the “positive feedback” from customers and investors over the deal.

In fact, the company’s fourth-quarter earnings are likely to be much more telling than the quarter just gone, as it will help to shed some more light on how its customers feel about the merger, said Doug Henschen, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research Inc.

“It will be crucial for Cloudera and Hortonworks to maintain sales momentum over the next quarter and into 2019,” Henschen said. “But there’s no doubt that buyers may delay purchases and deeper deployments of currently available software until there is greater clarity around the go-forward, unified platform that the combined company will deliver.”

Hortonworks’ refusal to provide any more details about the merger in the call also meant that its stock price didn’t move much. It rose by less than 2 percent in after-hours trading.

Analyst Charles King of Pund-IT Inc. said the lack of any dynamic price action was to be expected because Hortonworks is in an “odd position” given the planned merger, which will be an all-stock deal that doesn’t involve any cash changing hands. As a result, both companies’ stock has been trading in a fairly narrow range of late.

“When the deal is done, the merged companies should have a decent position in a range of big-data-related areas, including hybrid cloud and the ‘internet of things,'” King said. “I expect their respective executives and employees hope the time after the merger wraps up will be less tumultuous than the past few weeks.”

Hortonworks said it would not be providing guidance for the fourth quarter because of the anticipated merger.

Photo: SiliconANGLE