Email has grown to become the primary communications tool for businesses of all sizes and with it we have seen the rapid growth in spam, viruses and other threats that can not only attack a single computer but an entire network. Businesses are searching for solutions that don’t just eliminate spam but also protect their whole infrastructure by removing malicious viruses and worms before they ever reach internal systems.

Protect your customers with MX Logic Premium Spam Filtering and MX Logic Disaster Recovery Services.

MX Logic Premium Spam Filtering Service
This multi-layered service establishes a sophisticated email defense which integrates spam filtering and analysis, protection from electronic fraud, and complex filtering of unsolicited and offensive inbound email content and attachments.

MX Logic Disaster Recovery Service
MX Logic Disaster Recovery Service brings together the in-bound spam filtering and analysis of the Premium Spam Filtering Service with out-bound email analysis and message continuity enabling businesses to communicate even during network outages or natural disasters.

Why should you resell groupSPARK hosted business services?
• Offer your customers best-in-class spam filtering and other hosted business services from a recognized leader in the hosting industry. groupSPARK was named by Microsoft as their 2008-2009 Hosting Partner of the Year.
• Ensure the relationship you have with your customers is protected. groupSPARK’s private label hosted services and fully brandable control panel ensure that you maintain and build upon the business relationship you have worked so hard to develop with your customers.
• As a groupSPARK reseller you can add high-margin services to your product portfolio which generate monthly recurring revenue per user. No large initial capital outlay or deployment delays ensure you can start selling leading business services immediately, under your own brand with not risk.
• All of the groupSPARK hosted business services including Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, Dynamics CRM, MX Logic spam filtering, archiving services and email support for mobile devices are all integrated into one, easy to use web-based control panel. With just a few clicks of a mouse you and your customers can quickly enable and manage the hosted services that meet their specific needs.

- Hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM joins Microsoft Exchange Server, Windows SharePoint Services, and email archiving as private-label hosted software services sold to small and mid-size businesses through groupSPARK channel partners. -

Burlington, MA – September 30, 2009 – groupSPARK, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and the leading provider of private-label hosted software services, today announced the immediate availability of hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. The release of hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM enables reseller partners to offer their small and mid-size business (SMB) customers a new enterprise-class hosted software service in addition to hosted Microsoft Exchange Server, Windows SharePoint Services and email archiving which they are currently able to resell under their own brands.

Hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM seamlessly integrates with other Microsoft applications such as Microsoft Office Outlook and Microsoft Office Excel and allows SMB customers to more efficiently target new clients, drive sales and establish long-term customer relationships. Such capabilities as creating targeted marketing campaigns, analyzing customer data and reporting on sales opportunities in real time, help to streamline sales, marketing and customer service efforts, thereby increasing corporate productivity.

With the addition of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 to its current offering of hosted business services, groupSPARK resellers can now present their customers with a full breadth of services under their own brand through groupSPARK’s Private-Label Application Delivery (PLAD) platform. groupSPARK’s PLAD platform enables its reseller partners to resell these services in as little as 30 minutes using their own corporate branding and URL. It is another opportunity for them to expand their relationship with their customers and increase monthly recurring revenue per user. Resellers are also able to focus on their core strengths while groupSPARK focuses on providing best-in-class live 24 x 7 x 365 U.S.-based technical support, server maintenance and monitoring, anti-virus and anti-spam protection and guaranteed uptime.

“Microsoft Dynamics CRM offers hosting providers an opportunity to provide compelling enterprise- class hosted services,” said John Zanni, general manager of the Worldwide Software-plus-Services Industry, Microsoft Communications Sector. “By offering Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a hosted service, groupSPARK is providing its resellers with a more robust set of services they can then sell as their own without incurring excessive expenses or deployment delays.”

“groupSPARK resellers can now add hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 to their portfolio of leading hosted business services, including Microsoft Exchange Server and Windows SharePoint Services,” said Bill Flynn, senior executive officer, groupSPARK division of mindSHIFT Technologies, Inc. “These services enable our partners to go to market more quickly and provide the most widely used business applications to their customers at more cost effective prices.”

About groupSPARK
Located in Burlington, Massachusetts, groupSPARK, a mindSHIFT company, is a leading provider of SaaS services including Microsoft Exchange Server, Windows SharePoint Services, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and email archiving which can be fully 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.

Partners are able to address scalability and uptime concerns by leveraging groupSPARK’s 100% uptime SLA, private label 24×7x635 U.S.-based support and proactive hardware and software monitoring capabilities. For additional information, visit www.groupSPARK.com.
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The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Lisa Masiello
groupSPARK
781-418-1652
lmasiello@groupspark.com

We are excited to announce the availability of the new groupSPARK Partner Portal – an online repository of sales and marketing tools, tips, and the latest promotions, created specifically for our reseller partners to help them increase their sales of hosted business services.

Some of the materials include:
• Brandable Collateral: Add your company logo and contact information to our unbranded hosted Exchange, SharePoint, Dynamics CRM and archiving collateral and distribute under your brand to your customers.

• Website Content Generator: Generate unique hosted services messaging for your web site with just the click of a mouse. HTML code is automatically created and can be pasted into any page of your web site.

• Logo Downloads: Download product logos such as Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft Outlook 2007, Windows Mobile, Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services and many others to use on product data sheets, trade show graphics, print ads, banners, and other marketing materials.

Are you a groupSPARK reseller? Contact Johan Malone to receive your unique login credentials and take advantage of the groupSPARK Partner Portal today.

Peter Wendlandt
groupSPARK Partner Manager
781-418-1639
pwendlandt@groupspark.com
http://www.groupspark.com

Sunday, July 12, 2009 was one of the hottest days in recent memory but there were enthusiastic smiles all around. groupSPARK employees joined with Microsoft employees and its other partners from around the world to help Habitat for Humanity rebuild homes in New Orleans’ 9th Ward. As participants at Microsoft’s 2009 Worldwide Partner Conference, we had the unique opportunity to volunteer at the site of some of Hurricane Katrina’s worst devastation. Four years after the hurricane, rebuilding efforts continue and we were happy to arrive in New Orleans before the conference and work side by side with residents to rebuild their homes.   Hammers flew throughout the afternoon as volunteers completed the framing on two new homes in a neighborhood known as the Musicians’ Village. The Musicians’ Village was conceived by New Orleans native son’s Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis who were eager to see the musical heritage of the city return after Hurricane Katrina.

groupSPARK employees are happy to have had the opportunity to offer their time and talents to the residents of New Orleans and look forward volunteering on other projects.

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

Check the status of our services

In our continuing effort to help you support your customers, we have launched the new Status Page for groupSPARK (http://status.groupspark.com). Now, if a problem is reported by one of your customers, you can easily refer to this page for any information that we hay have about it.

To make things even easier for you, we have created a page that has no branding which you can incorporate into your website if you would like : http://status.groupspark.com/Server_Status.php. You can point your users to the unbranded page, or enclose it in an iframe as part of your own site

groupSPARK is the first Hosted Exchange messaging and collaboration provider to provide this important tool to their partners.

Windows SharePoint templates are out-of-the-box customized web pages that address the needs and requirements of specific business processes and sets of tasks. They allow for the easy customization of SharePoint services to any business situation for SMBs though SharePoint can be used in organizations of any size.

Even though Windows SharePoint Services v3.0 is a powerful standalone tool, application templates can be plugged in to help customize for specific situations such as:

The Competitive Analysis Site – The Competitive Analysis Site application template helps individuals and teams organize competitive information. The site provides useful document templates helping users perform useful competitive analysis techniques. Links to industry, company and product news can also be included making the site the central location for all industry and competitive news and information.

The Employee Activities Site – The Employee Activities Site application template helps manage the creation and attendance of events for employees. Users can submit event profiles and create event calendar items while other employees use the site to sign up as well as track their full activities list.

The Employee Self-Service Benefits Site – The Employee Self-Service Benefits application template provides a location to inform employees about available benefits as well as enabling them to enroll for each benefit.

The Sports League Site – The Sports League application template helps an intra-company league administrator manage a sports league. The site tracks team information, players, captains and scheduled team activities (including off-field activities). Team members can enter in game results and perform analysis at a team, game or individual player level. The site also enables discussions between league members through a League Discussion board.

In response to some recent suggestions from our Partners, we have begun to institute a Partner Notification System, which will provide our partners updated information on the health of our network. The first phase in implementing this system will be to expose our new Status page, located outside of our network, that shows the current condition for each of the services we run. This Status page should be available to you by the middle of the month, so keep an eye out for more information.

Outlook 2007 is our focus this month. We wanted to give you a few selling points and educate you on some of the cool new functionality you and your users will see with this release.

Advanced searching capabilities – The new Instant Search tool allows users to not only conduct keyword searches of their Outlook 2007 messages but also within e-mail attachments.

Centralized communication management – Users can now read and manage Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds and blogs right from within Outlook 2007. This allows users to organize and manage more of the information they use on a daily basis from one central location.

Less junk mail and improved phishing protection - To help protect users from divulging personal information to a threatening Web site, Outlook 2007 has an improved junk e-mail filter and has added new features that disable links and warn users about threatening content within an e-mail message.

Integration with SharePoint Services 3.0- Users can connect and access SharePoint Services 3.0 documents, calendars, contacts, tasks, and other information through Outlook 2007, giving them a central place to manage information.

Just about everyone in the world has to pay for Outlook 2007 - except for your users - giving you a chance to offer a very compelling reason to use Hosted Exchange mailboxes. Right of the bat, you are offering them a savings of hundreds or thousands of dollars! As a cost conscious SMB, this is very attractive. Take advantage of this in your marketing pitch.