MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. — Xora and Gearworks, two companies with location-based mobile business applications, recently announced that they have joined forces, servicing more than 16,000 customers in partnership with wireless carriers across the world.

The combined company, which will retain the name Xora, will partner with Sprint Nextel, Verizon, AT&T, Telstra, U.S. Cellular, Cbeyond and Procall. In addition to wireless carrier partnerships, Xora provides location-aware mobile time clock and data collection solutions for companies that offer time and labor management and payroll services. The combined product portfolio will consist of Xora’s GPS TimeTrack suite of products and Gearworks’ Field Force Manager, etrace, OnCare and Appmosphere offerings.

“This combination brings together two recognized leaders in the industry that share a common vision and desire to bring powerful tools to businesses that want to improve their operational efficiency,” said Sanjay Shirole, co-founder and CEO of Xora. “By measures critical to our long-term success, including growth and diversification of revenues, product portfolio, channel partnerships and customer support capabilities, this merger is a big win not only for us, but also for the customers and partners of the new combined company.”

In North America, the market for handset-based mobile resource management applications is expected to reach 6.9 million subscribers and more than $1 billion in annual recurring software revenue by 2012, according to Frost & Sullivan, an industry analyst firm that tracks mobile and wireless communications.

“The Xora-Gearworks merger is exceptionally well-timed to give the company pole position in the burgeoning market for handset-based mobile resource management solutions,” said Jeanine Sterling, senior industry analyst for mobile and wireless communications at Frost & Sullivan. 

As part of this transaction, investors from both companies, including Dawntreader Ventures, BlueStream Ventures, Split Rock Partners and Rho Ventures have made additional equity investments, totaling $8.5 million dollars. In addition, Patrick Wack, former CEO and currently chairman of Intralinks, a pioneer in the software-as-a-service space will join the Xora Board of Directors.