IN THIS ISSUE

:: Increase Revenue!
:: Get to know a groupSPARK employee
:: Spam Filtering and Exchange 2007
:: Sales Tip!
:: groupSPARK and WebHost Automation Partnership
:: groupSPARK To Offer Dynamics CRM 4.0
:: Conference Recap

Greetings,

Welcome to the September newsletter. This month we’ll be focusing in on dedicated server opportunities and the best ways to close them. We will also look at additional revenue opportunities through our affiliate program.

- Duane
Duane Batista
Partner Manager

Increase Revenue!
Become a groupSPARK affiliate

In addition to the revenue you are generating by reselling our services, you can now generate additional revenue by becoming a groupSPARK affiliate. Do you have a reseller who utilizes a great deal of your support resources or resellers for which you do not wish to manage the billing function? Don’t lose that revenue - become a groupSPARK affiliate.

We pay 10% commissions for the first 6 months of revenue you generate for each client you refer to us. We have partnered with Share-A-Sale to ensure that there is a neutral 3rd party tracking these sales. To sign up, simply go to http://www.shareasale.com/shareasale.cfm? merchantID=13730 to being the process. There is no cost to sign up, so you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. For additional information on our affiliate program please contact apm@groupspark.com or call 781-273-6248 x638.

Sales Tip!
Selling Dedicated Servers

Dedicated servers generate recurring revenue for your company, provide 40-50% margins, allow you to create your own plans with custom disk space quotas and decrease churn. When discussing the benefits of a dedicated server with your customers these are some of the benefits you will want to promote:

• Theirs is the only company on the server.
• They have much more granular control of user access & mailbox limits.
• Users can be classified into policies, which lets them change disk space and access levels very quickly by just making changes to the policy and not users individually. For example, they can restrict POP3/IMAP/OWA/ActiveSync features for users by creating policies.
• Mailboxes up to 15GB at no additional cost

Should you be interested in discussing how you can promote the benefits of dedicated servers to your customers, feel free to contact our sales department at 781-273-6248 or http://news.groupspark.com/sales@groupspark.com.

groupSPARK and WebHost Automation Partnership

groupSPARK recently announced that we have integrated our private label SaaS platform into WebHost Automation’s leading Windows Web hosting control panel, Helm. As a result of this partnership, WebHost Automation’s customers can now sell hosted Microsoft Exchange Server, Windows SharePoint Services, Dynamics CRM and mobile device services to their customers. As is the case in a hosted Exchange environment, no investment in infrastructure or personnel is required. Helm Web hosting providers are now able to significantly grow their revenue while providing their customers with anywhere, anytime access to their messaging and collaboration data.

groupSPARK To Offer Dynamics CRM 4.0

Resellers and customers alike are eagerly anticipating the release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 by the end of this year. The key feature of this new version of Microsoft’s customer relationship management solution is its multitenant architecture. This new architecture allows Microsoft CRM to be located on shared servers providing SMBs with the full features and functionality of CRM without having to pay the additional cost associated with a dedicated server and signing a yearlong contract. The current version of CRM is only available to dedicated server customers.

September Dedicated Server Special

 

 

Not sure if SharePoint or BlackBerry Enterprise Server will work for your customers’ needs? Now is the time to see! They can use the voucher towards the monthly fees for: BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Good Messaging, Postini, SharePoint, Archiving for Compliance, Extended Backup Options, or Hard Drive upgrades!*

Not sure if SharePoint or BlackBerry Enterprise Server will work for your customers’ needs? Now is the time to see! They can use the voucher towards the monthly fees for:Requirements:

1. Contract and initial payment must be received no later than the close of business on September 28, 2007 to take part in this month’s special offerings.
2. Cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer or discount.

* The voucher cannot be used on setup fees for these services. For more information contact sales@groupspark.com.

Get to know a groupSPARK employee
Robert Mitchell

In each issue of this newsletter we would like to introduce you to a different groupSPARK employee. Today, we would like you to meet Robert Mitchell. Rob joined groupSPARK in February of this year and has become an integral member of our technical support team answering a wide variety of Exchange, SharePoint and CRM questions and helping to resolve any technical issues that arise. Some of you may have already gotten to know him. In addition, he also assists in the configuration of the dedicated servers ensuring they meet the specific needs of each individual customer.

Prior to joining groupSPARK Rob spent 6 years at Comcast as part of their Advanced Technical Services department providing technical support to Comcast employees in the field. He also spent 2 years at Getronics providing in-house logistics services.

Rob enjoys spending his free time with his young family and is a huge Boston Celtics and New England Patriots fan. The next time you contact our technical support department be sure to say hello to Rob.

Spam Filtering and Exchange 2007

When speaking to your customers about spam filtering for Exchange 2007 remember that Postini server-side spam filtering is the only anti-spam solution available. Microsoft IMF is not currently available on Exchange 2007. Both IMF and Postini are available for Exchange 2003.

Conference Recap
Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference & HostingCon

Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference
On July 10, 2007 over 7,300 Microsoft Partners, including groupSPARK, converged in Denver, Colorado for the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference. It provided all of us with a wide range of valuable resources including networking opportunities with other partners and the Microsoft team, hands-on labs, panel discussions and presentations and exhibits to examine the latest technology. We look forward to seeing everyone at our booth in 2008.

HostingCon
We had a fun time in Chicago, Illinois from July 23-25, 2007 for HostingCon. The event brought together both executives and system administrators to learn from industry professionals on how to grow their hosted services business. We enjoyed meeting everyone who stopped by our booth and entered our Home Run Derby for a chance to win a Nintendo Wii. Congratulations to winners Stephen Tadman and Stephen Casazza.

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We hope that you’ve enjoyed reading our September 2007 Partner Newsletter and that you found the information useful. As always, please feel free to let me know if there is anything that you would like to see in the newsletter. 

Sincerely,

Duane Batista
groupSPARK
email: dbatista@groupspark.com
phone: 781.273.6248
web: http://www.groupspark.com

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 29th, 2007 at 8:55 am and is filed under Newsletters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.