"Our goal is to be, if not the leader in the industry, then certainly one of the top two or three companies in the industry over the long term," said VeriCenter CEO Gray Hall. "I think we are on course to do that today but if we want to remain in that position, we have to continue to grow either on pace with the industry or ahead of the industry's pace."

To keep up with that pace, said Hall, VeriCenter will continue to look for opportunities that will allow the company to grow even faster. "If that means acquisitions, we're willing to consider that," he said. "We've never had a down quarter in the history of the company. We want to stay on that track of steady and rapid organic growth."

The deal between Sprint and VeriCenter was finalized December 19, and although the financial details of the deal have not been disclosed, a report in the Business Journal of Kansas City said it was worth $12.5 million.

VeriCenter acquired Sprint's data center facilities in Boston, Atlanta, Dallas and Denver along with about 300 new customers, including the customers of the former DellHost brand. The acquisition boosted VeriCenter's base of clients to more than 400, including government sites such as the FBI, NASA's eTouch site for the Mars landing, as well as other major companies including Shell, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Microsoft, and Dr.Pepper/7-Up.

VeriCenter first learned of Sprint's decision to sell its hosting assets in June, about one year after it had begun looking to make an acquisition.

"When we started in late-99, early 2000, we had a goal of getting profitable in that one region as quickly as possible. We opened a data center in Houston during 2000, and we grew from zero to cash flow positive by February 2002," Hall said. "At that point we felt it made sense for us to start looking at acquisition opportunities to grow and expand in other regions."

VeriCenter initially sought to purchase entire companies, but had difficulty finding ones that were profitable with a pure managed hosting revenue and a high concentration of enterprise hosting. Hall said it was a "no-brainer" for VeriCenter to bid on Sprint's assets, but he was unsure whether they would have the chance to compete for it because the sale had been made public and he expected a lot of interest from other larger companies.

"There were more than 30 competitors for the business and VeriCenter was among the smallest, if not the smallest, company to express interest," he said.

At first the response from Sprint's customers varied. Some customers were happy to be united with a company that deals specifically with hosting needs, while others were skeptical, having chosen Sprint because it was a large, well-known firm. However, since the acquisition, Hall says VeriCenter has not lost any of its new customers.

This smooth acquisition has given the company the confidence to keep going forward.

"There's going to be a lot of growth," Hall said. "The demand is picking up a lot and our pipeline right now is the strongest it's ever been by a wide margin. We're seeing companies from small to large who are really showing strong appetite to outsource the management of their IT infrastructure to a hosting company, and I don't see that trend slowing down. In fact, to the contrary, I think as the economy picks up it's going to get stronger, so we need to expect to continue to grow."