BURLINGTON, MA - May 13, 2008 - groupSPARK, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and the leading provider of private label hosted software services including hosted Exchange Server 2007, hosted SharePoint Services v3.0, and hosted Dynamics CRM, announced today that groupSPARK senior executive officer, Ravi Agarwal, will be speaking at the ISPCon Spring 2008 conference and trade show.

ISPCon Spring 2008 will be held at the Donald E. Stephens (Rosemont) Convention Center in Chicago, Illinois from May 13-15, 2008.  The event brings together 2500+ internet industry professionals including ISPs, webhosting providers, VoIP providers and numerous other internet industry professionals to discuss all facets of internet business including ways to increase revenue and develop new business opportunities. 

Ravi Agarwal, groupSPARK senior executive officer, will speak to attendees on Thursday, May 15, 2008 on ways for ISPs and the service provider community to successfully compete in the expanding hosted services arena.  His presentation titled SaaS vs. Software + Service: How You Can Survive Microsoft’s Entry into the Hosted Services Market, will speak to the trepidation now felt by resellers of hosted services worldwide regarding Microsoft’s decision to enter the market with their own hosted services offerings.  Mr. Agarwal will address the explosive growth in the market and offer strategies resellers can employ to stand apart from the competition and provide value added products and services to their small and mid-size business customers. 
“The hosting industry is growing dramatically as more and more SMBs discover that they can pay a small monthly fee and achieved the same level of productivity as large companies by using enterprise class messaging and collaboration tools in a hosted environment.  As a result, resellers are looking to take advantage of this trend and offer these services to their customers.  However, the recent press surrounding Microsoft’s entry into the hosted Software as a Service market is making many resellers reconsider their decision as they are unsure whether they will be able to compete,” said Ravi Agarwal, senior executive director, groupSPARK division of mindSHIFT Technologies, Inc.  “This fear is completely unfounded.  There are many ways resellers can differentiate themselves and continue to thrive in this rapidly growing market. There is enough room for everyone to be successful.” 

One of the ways that groupSPARK continues to thrive in a competitive market is to offer a full breadth of private label hosted software services through their reseller channel to SMBs who would otherwise be unable to deploy the applications in-house due to their significant cost.  Services include hosted Exchange Server 2007, hosted SharePoint Services 3.0, and hosted Dynamics CRM as well as 2-way wireless synchronization with BlackBerry Enterprise Server®, Windows Mobile and Good Mobile Messaging. groupSPARK also offers all resellers live 24 x 7 technical support via phone, email and online chat which is staffed by experts based in the United States.

About groupSPARK
Located in Burlington, Massachusetts, groupSPARK, a mindSHIFT company, 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. For additional information, visit www.groupSPARK.com.

 

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Contacts:

Lisa Masiello 
groupSPARK
781-273-6248 x652
lmasiello@groupspark.com

Jennifer Signorini
Weber Shandwick
617-520-7069
jsignorini@webershandwick.com