BURLINGTON, MA - December 19, 2007 - groupSPARK, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and the leading provider of private label hosted software services including Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, today announced the availability of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 for its channel partners.  The company offers hosted private label SaaS solutions which its partners resell to their small and mid-size business (SMB) customers.  These additional services allow groupSPARK partners to increase their average revenue per user (ARPU) and improve their customer retention. 

Service Pack 1 Features and Enhancements

Database Replication
groupSPARK resellers can now offer their dedicated Microsoft Exchange 2007 server customers the ability to maintain redundant mirrors of their hosted data using Local Continuous Replication (LCR) and Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR).  LCR allows for a fully mirrored database to be stored on a secondary storage device connected to the customer’s dedicated Exchange 2007 server.  CCR on the other hand, requires a second server to be installed which will maintain the mirrored data.  Data replication provides increased data availability and redundancy ensuring that customers can achieve the highest possible level of availability by immediately activating the mirrored database and converting it to the production database when and if needed. groupSPARK resellers can offer these redundancy options to their dedicated hosted Exchange server customers for an additional fee.

Mobile workers who use Outlook Web Access (OWA) while on the road will find that OWA has been redesigned to enhance the end user experience and increase productivity.

OWA Public Folder Access
Public folders can now be created, deleted, edited and accessed by using OWA in addition to Microsoft Outlook.  This allows employees to share documents and access files via Outlook and OWA and also use search capabilities from any machine no matter where they are.

Enhanced Security
The S/MIME (Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) feature helps secure messages by preventing impersonation and tampering with email messages in OWA. Users can now encrypt outgoing messages and attachments so that only intended recipients who have a digital certificate can read them. A digitally signed message assures the recipient that the message has not been tampered with.

WebReady Document Viewing
The new WebReady document viewing feature in Service Pack 1 now enables the conversion of Word documents, Excel worksheets and PowerPoint presentations into HTML files allowing documents to be viewed as a web page.  This is helpful for mobile users who may only be able to access files via a web browser. 

Additional Service Pack 1 OWA enhancements include personal distribution lists, recovery of deleted items, monthly calendar views as well as additional language support in spell check.

Import and Export of PST Files
Using Service Pack 1 groupSPARK resellers can now assist their customers in migrating to hosted Exchange 2007 by having groupSPARK import customers Outlook .pst files directly to the hosted Exchange server.  This provides small and mid-size businesses with the opportunity to easily migrate from earlier versions of Exchange to a hosted Exchange 2007 SP 1 solution offered by groupSPARK resellers.  
 
“We are pleased to offer these new Exchange enhancements as a hosted service to our partners, allowing them to offer an even more feature rich messaging and collaboration solution to their customers,” said Gagan Prakash, chief operating officer of groupSPARK.  “These new Exchange features coupled with our complete private label SaaS solution, allows them to offer industry leading products and services to SMBs looking to dramatically increase productivity and grow their business.” 

About groupSPARK
Located in Burlington, Massachusetts, groupSPARK is a leading provider of SaaS  services, such as Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services v3.0, and Dynamics CRM, which can be completely private labeled and resold by partners as a part of their own product offerings saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in development and support costs.

Its partners utilize groupSPARK’s turnkey private label platform to provide hosted services to their users in minutes.  Partners are able to address scalability and uptime concerns by leveraging groupSPARK’s 100% uptime SLA, private label 24×7 U.S.-based support and proactive hardware and software monitoring capabilities.

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