A recent industry study showed that there will be 20 billion connected, data-generating “internet of things” devices in the market by 2020. Who is going to own all of that data?

That’s the central question that is under much discussion in the information technology world these days as companies gaze warily at the internet of things data tsunami lurking off the enterprise shore. There are few standards or consistent practices for the ownership of machine-generated data, but one top executive for a major company is already taking a firm stand.

“There’s a lot of companies out there, even if they won’t say it, that actually want to own the customers’ data. We do want customers to own their data, not us,” said Brian Householder (pictured), president and chief operating officer at Hitachi Vantara.

Householder stopped by the set of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s mobile livestreaming studio, and spoke with host Dave Vellante (@dvellante) during the PentahoWorld event in Orlando, Florida. They discussed the evolution of Hitachi’s business over the past decade, how Hitachi Vantara plans to deliver edge to outcomes, and Pentaho’s open-source heritage. (* Disclosure below.)

Hitachi Vantara, newly-formed from the combined units of Hitachi Data Systems Corp., Hitachi Insight Group and Pentaho Corp., is the data arm for Hitachi. The new organization recognizes Hitachi’s transformation from being an infrastructure vendor to a software and services provider, since that portion of the business now accounts for 60 percent of the revenue, according to Householder.

“The mission of Vantara is how we help our customers deliver edge to outcomes,” Householder said.

Powering analytics at the edge

The currently evolving enterprise data management model includes ingestion of data at the edge, a hub or point of aggregation for the information, and then use of a public or on-premises cloud for everything else. This plays well into Hitachi Vantara’s strategy since Pentaho provides an important analytics function that will likely be needed by customers at the edge.

“There will have to be some level of analytics that’s going to occur somewhere at that edge,” Householder explained. “A lot of people have this belief that data is going to move to where the analytics are, and we believe it’s going to be exactly the opposite.”

The company clearly feels that this approach will resonate with Global 2000 companies, the customer space where Hitachi Vantara envisions the most opportunity. Because of Pentaho’s open-source heritage, the full Hitachi Vantara commercial line offers an opportunity to manage a range of IT solutions at scale.

“Customers don’t want to have to distribute all of that open source and have to manage it,” Householder said. “That’s where we think we add a lot of the value, and it’s where the commercial piece of the equation comes into play.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of PentahoWorld. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for PentahoWorld. Neither Hitachi Vantara, the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE