Sphera said the center is designed to augment the company's core center for hosting automation development and research in Tel Aviv, Israel and accelerate product development in the face of growing market demand.

"The formation of this relationship is in response to our success in the market and our expanding customer requirements," said Michael Gold, CEO of Sphera. "In-Reality's contributions will expedite Sphera's already efficient development of new product capabilities for Sphera's HostingBusiness Suite. The joint development arrangement rounds out Sphera's strategy to more deeply penetrate the high-end hosting provider market."

Sphera raised $4 million in venture capital last November.

"As consolidation continues in the hosting industry, the larger providers are looking to us to help them differentiate their services," said Gold. "We recently secured additional funding to accelerate and expand our business more rapidly. Capitalizing on In-Reality's experience and best practices will enable us to be more efficient and aggressive in delivering new products and features to our customers."

According to Sphera, In-Reality's highly skilled software engineers will augment Sphera's own resources in the US, Europe, Japan, and Israel.

"We've been extremely impressed by Sphera's innovation," said Deodhar, president of In-Reality. "Their solutions are comprehensive, requiring the same breadth and depth of technological expertise that distinguishes In-Reality. We're looking forward to aligning with Sphera and helping to make the hosting business more profitable for aggressive players."