The debate over the Open Data Platform presently raging in the Big Data community is, at its core, about money and is generated by the very different business models of the two main Hadoop competitors – Hortonworks, Inc. and Cloudera, Inc..

The total Big Data market, including Hadoop, analysis systems and surrounding services, will top $50 billion in 2017, writes Wikibon Big Data Analyst Jeff Kelly. But, Hadoop and its surrounding services will only account for 3 percent, or about $677 million, of that figure. The rest of the money will come from software and services higher up the stack. Cloudera and Hortonworks, the two primary suppliers of Hadoop distros and services, who collectively have raised more than $1.5 billion in venture capital, are understandably fighting for every penny.

Hortonworks’ strategy is to focus on providing and advancing pure Apache open source Hadoop distros and to make its money on services. This makes it a perfect fit for the Open Data Platform, a consortium mainly of vendors of higher level analytics and similar products and services including IBM and Pivotal Software, Inc. .

Cloudera, in contrast, makes money selling proprietary Hadoop extensions and isn’t interested in making the Hadoop stack a commodity. Thus Cloudera has a vested interest in opposing the platform.

Kelly has summarized the points on both sides on several occasions, including his presentation at the recent SiliconMEDIA BigDataSV 2015 event. That debate will, and should, continue for some time, he writes. But at its core is the competition for the money the market promises.

Kelly’s full analysis is available on the new Wikibon Premium site without charge.

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