Oracle is working with Vodafone to target Internet of Things (IoT) opportunities as it takes advantage of the telecom giant’s customer base to expand its own reach.

The firm’s executive VP for EMEA, Loïc le Guisquet, said Oracle would mix Vodafone’s mobile applications expertise with its own cloud tools to develop IoT solutions.

Announcing the collaboration (not a partnership, according to a spokesman) at Oracle’s OpenWorld 2014 conference, le Guisquet said: "We are going to collaborate to help us grow into that future and develop new solutions in that space. This is a pretty big endeavour we are going after together."

While he was vague about what the two companies could work on, he said Oracle was excited about the opportunities in mobile health applications.

"The Fitbit, the Nike FuelBand and now the Apple watch, all of these devices can help all of us monitor our body signals full time," he said. "In the brave new world, it’s not about going to the doctor for a test, it’s about having those metrics 24/7, 365 days a year.

"Think about what that will do to the way people manage their health, it’s a massive change."

Dermot O’Kelly, senior VP of Oracle for the UK, Ireland and Israel, told CBR Oracle will underpin Vodafone’s applications with its fast data-processing add-on Database In-Memory, which sits on top of Database 12c.

He said the huge amount of data Vodafone has on customers would provide opportunities for both the telecoms giant and third-parties, but Vodafone required Oracle’s expertise to manage, analyse and process that data speedily.

"Vodafone could have a huge amount of data about people and their habits and geography; where you are, what you do. So at all times they pretty well know where you are. So people could use that if you develop a solution dependent on your location, I could push some marketing to you which is geographically based, whether it’s retail or whatever."

He said these kind of applications would rely on Database In-Memory for speedy processing as location changes, to ensure the data is real-time.

"Companies like Vodafone can see a way of monetising their data now, which probably was missing before," he told CBR. "They’ve always been great at collecting data, it’s what you do with the data now you’ve got it.

"Clearly we can run all applications in-memory now on 12c so that’s given us this huge advantage of virtual real-time data."

He added that Vodafone would also rely on Oracle’s analytics, database, servers and its Engineered Systems hardware to manage its vast swathes of information.

As of January, Vodafone claimed it has 411 million customers worldwide, with 19 million in the UK. O’Kelly said Oracle was hoping to expand its own customer base through the partnership.

"This is about extending to other markets and extending both Oracle IP and Vodafone IP to other markets, which again Vodafone can give us reach we couldn’t have on our own," he said.

"Do Vodafone customers know they are getting Oracle technology when they buy from Vodafone? Probably not. Do we care? No as long as we get our solutions out there. Java is already embedded in most mobile devices already so it seems pretty natural to expand our footprint of that."

However, he was vague on what solutions the firms would collaborate on and declined to give a rough timescale for their development.