"All in all I am very pleased and impressed
with their service. The tech support staff helped
me make this a very smooth transition. They are
undoubtedly professionals in this field and I'm
glad we made the move to their service. Only
wish we did it sooner."
:: Rick Heyn
[more]
Vergeline, a U.S.-based technology company, switches hosting providers and chooses groupSPARK as their preferred vendor.
After spending many months struggling with another hosted Exchange provider, Vergeline chose to join groupSPARK’s Exchange Reseller Program and move their clients to groupSPARK’s highly reliable and secure hosted business services. groupSPARK offers Vergeline’s customers the flexibility to manage their email, archiving, anti-virus/anti-spam filtering, SharePoint, CRM and email encryption services all through one easy to use, web-based control panel, saving them significant time and money.
“We at Vergeline have used other hosted Exchange providers in the past and none of them have provided the tremendous customer service and sales support to make our private labeled offering successful the way that groupSPARK has. Their full featured offerings allow us to drive additional revenue with our customers by adding hosted archiving, mobility, SharePoint, hosted Desktop and AS/AV filtering. The uptime guarantee has helped our customers stay connected with the service with unprecedented connectivity.”
Mike DelVerne
President, Vergeline
groupSPARK has launched Password Synchronization, a proprietary tool that will keep your client’s passwords stored in their Active Directory Server synched with their hosted Exchange service. Each time a password is changed, the password on our groupSPARK server is changed. With this optional service, users do not have to remember two different passwords and administrators do not need to synchronize them manually. Please contact a groupSPARK sales engineer if you are a current groupSPARK partner and wish to activate this product.
Not already a groupSPARK partner? Join groupSPARK’s Exchange Reseller Program and resell the most in-demand SaaS services under your own brand. Sign up today or chat with a partner manager at 877-546-7227 or info@groupSPARK.com.
groupSPARK has released Active Directory Automatic Synchronization, a new proprietary tool to help its resellers’ clients manage their hosted Exchange users through their own Active Directory (AD). The tool listens for changes in the client’s AD environment and automatically updates the hosted Exchange environment every 5 minutes with the changes. Since this is entirely automated, there is no user interface associated with this tool. This optional service allows clients with large and/or complex organizations to maintain consistency between their Exchange and Office environments in a fully automated fashion. Please contact a groupSPARK sales engineer if you are a current groupSPARK partner and wish to enable this product for a client.
Not already a groupSPARK partner? Join groupSPARK’s Exchange Reseller Program and resell the most in-demand SaaS services under your own brand. Sign up today or chat with a partner manager at 877-546-7227 or info@groupSPARK.com
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.
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.Â
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.Â
“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.”Â
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 SaaSÂ 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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The RIM and BlackBerry families of related marks, images and symbols are the exclusive properties of and trademarks or registered trademarks of Research In Motion Limited - used by permission. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Contacts:
BURLINGTON, MA - March 26, 2008 - groupSPARK, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and the leading provider of private label hosted software services including Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, today announced the availability of Service Pack 1 for hosted SharePoint 3.0Â delivering additional stability and performance enhancements.
groupSPARK resellers can now offer their customers hosted Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1 with all of the latest feature enhancements and upgrades. This industry-leading collaboration tool enables small and mid-size businesses to increase productivity, teamwork and efficiency. Acting as a central repository, employees can share project schedules, create lists of data, update files, and share ideas. Hosted SharePoint’s web-based interface enables departments, project teams and remote employees to work together by utilizing their hosted SharePoint site as a central location from which to disseminate data and information. Users can also launch and maintain web pages, intranets and photo libraries.
As businesses grow, open additional locations and even expand to other countries around the world, the need for a centralized location to store and manage data becomes increasingly important.Â
groupSPARK resellers will now be able to offer hosted Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1 to businesses previously unwilling to use the initial version of hosted SharePoint. “Many businesses traditionally do not jump right into new versions of software. They wait until the first service pack is released to take advantage of the upgrades and enhancements that Microsoft makes available,” said Ravi Agarwal, chief executive officer of groupSPARK. “Our resellers now have the opportunity to offer hosted Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1 to those companies who have previously been reluctant to use the earlier version.”
About groupSPARK
Located in Burlington, Massachusetts, groupSPARK is a leading provider of SaaSÂ 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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The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
BURLINGTON, MA - March 4, 2008 - groupSPARK, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and the leading Software as a Service (SaaS) provider of - hosted messaging and collaboration services such as private label Exchange Server 2007 and private label SharePoint 3.0, announced today that it welcomes Microsoft’s further entry into the hosted services market with the beta release of Exchange Online and SharePoint Online for small and mid-size businesses (SMBs).
Microsoft’s beta release of the Exchange Online and SharePoint Online hosted services further validates groupSPARK’s core vision: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services v3 while being the best-in-class messaging and collaboration applications are difficult for SMB’s to setup and manage and best utilized as hosted services. Additionally, Microsoft’s anticipated Q4 launch should have the effect of not only increasing the market share of Exchange Server mailboxes from 135 Million worldwide, according to the Radicati Group, but also cause many SMBs to look at hosted alternatives such as Microsoft’s and groupSPARK’s offerings.
Microsoft’s offerings, which seemingly compete with groupSPARK, are incomplete at best, as they lack critical third party services such as BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) - this makes the Microsoft offering a non-starter for most businesses. More importantly, the Microsoft Online services will be sold exclusively through partners but without any partner branding. The lack of partner branding reduces the partner’s relationship with the end customer as the customer realizes that the partner is not adding any value and simply reselling a commodity service.
groupSPARK, on the other hand, is a best of breed provider and offers not only current and previous versions of Exchange and SharePoint servers but also access to critical non-Microsoft services such as BlackBerry Enterprise Server for two way mobile synchronization as well as industry leading Postini for spam and virus filtering and archiving services. Additionally, groupSPARK’s partner program empowers its partners to own and extend their customer relationships by fully private labeling groupSPARK’s offering under their own name and brand - the customers never realize that the ultimate provider of the service is groupSPARK - and thus create customer loyalty. To maximize revenue, groupSPARK’s resellers set pricing for all of their customers and can even create custom hosted Exchange offerings to sell differentiated offerings in the marketplace.
“We welcome Microsoft’s new entry into the hosted services market and are encouraged that SMBs will realize that hosted software services are a key tool in increasing corporate productivity and growing their business,” said Ravi Agarwal, chief executive officer of groupSPARK. “Currently only 1.5 million users use hosted Exchange worldwide. Microsoft’s entry into this market will cause awareness of hosted Exchange to grow and will cause this market growth to accelerate. groupSPARK is uniquely positioned to help channel partners to take advantage of this explosive growth opportunity and maximize revenue.”*
About groupSPARK Located in Burlington, Massachusetts, groupSPARK is a leading provider of SaaSÂ services, such as Microsoft Exchange Server, SharePoint Services, 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, live 24×7 U.S.-based phone & email support and proactive hardware and software monitoring capabilities.
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*Hosted Messaging Trends 2007-2010, Osterman Research, August 2007.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Contact Info:
Lisa Masiello
groupSPARK
781-273-6248 x652 lmasiello@groupspark.com
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.Â
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.Â
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. Â
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“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.”Â
About groupSPARK
Located in Burlington, Massachusetts, groupSPARK is a leading provider of SaaSÂ 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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The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
BURLINGTON, MA - November 27, 2007 - groupSPARK, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and a leading private label Software as a Service (SaaS) provider of hosted services including Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, announced today that it has been chosen by Microsoft Corp. to participate in its Technology Adoption Program (TAP) for the next significant release of Microsoft’s customer relationship management solution Microsoft Dynamics CRM, code-named “Titan”. As a result, select groupSPARK reseller partners can receive early access to the application as a hosted solution.
With inclusion into Microsoft’s TAP program, groupSPARK will be the first providers of hosted software services to offer Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. groupSPARK will collaborate closely with the Microsoft development team, gain greater insight into the technology and provide valuable feedback helping to shape the release version of the product.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM is an intuitive customer relationship management application which helps companies grow their business, improve customer service and increase profitability. groupSPARK is adding Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 to its hosted services offering which currently includes Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services v3.0 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0.
The new version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM offers a software platform that is fully multi-tenant and highly scalable, and supports multiple languages and currencies. It delivers a highly productive, role-tailored user experience across a wide range of user interfaces, including Microsoft® Office Outlook®, Windows® Internet Explorer® and a broad range of mobile devices. The ability for customers to quickly utilize Microsoft Dynamics CRM in a hosted environment is also beneficial to groupSPARK private label resellers. They will be able to offer Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 as a hosted service to their customers without requiring hardware dedicated to individual companies, thus, reducing cost, allowing flexibility and scalability in growth for their customers as well as significantly shortening their own sales cycle. In addition, this new service will expand resellers’ portfolios of private label hosted services and allow them to generate increased recurring revenue.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 will also help customers dramatically increase productivity by allowing them to utilize or customize the provided Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 workflow templates. By better managing their customer relationships users will gain greater insight into their customers’ behaviors, improve customer service and increase revenue. Preconfigured templates for the manufacturing industry and the public sector are currently offered and additional templates will be made available in the coming months. Resellers will also have the ability to modify these templates to fit their customer’s needs thereby increasing the opportunity to generate additional revenue and greater customer retention.
“As the first to market hosted software services provider to offer Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, we are delighted to be able to make Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 available to a select group of industry partners as a hosted private label solution. This is a significant addition to their current offering of private label hosted services and gives them the opportunity to gain additional revenue,” stated Ravi Agarwal, chief executive officer of groupSPARK. “This new release also gives small and mid-size companies the ability to significantly grow their own businesses and enhance their customer relationships.”
To obtain additional information on groupSPARK’s partner program and to be considered for inclusion in groupSPARK’s early access program for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 please visit http://www.groupspark.com/Microsoft_Dynamics_CRM.htm.
About groupSPARK
Located in Burlington, Massachusetts, groupSPARK is a leading provider of hosted SaaS services including Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services v3.0, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 making them available to be resold by partners. This completely private labeled service allows partners to expand upon their own product offerings and save 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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The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
BURLINGTON, MA - July 9, 2007 - groupSPARK, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and the leading private label Software as a Service (SaaS) provider of hosted services including Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, announced today that it is now offering 24×7 private label tier-1 technical support for its resellers as an optional service. This service is immediately available to channel partners and resellers so that they can provide their customers with comprehensive technical support and simultaneously save money.
Resellers can take advantage of groupSPARK’s internal infrastructure, technical expertise and leadership in the private label Hosted Microsoft Exchange Server marketplace by outsourcing technical support for their customers as well. The company now provides 24×7 private label tier-1 technical support to resellers’ customers via phone or e-mail using the reseller’s name and branding. The customer will be unaware that their technical support is being provided by groupSPARK.
groupSPARK’s hosted SaaS offering includes 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 them hundreds of thousands of dollars in development and operational costs. Because groupSPARK’s entire reseller solution is fully private labeled using its state-of-the-art Private Label Application Delivery platform (PLAD) and includes the reseller’s branding and design, the service provided by groupSPARK is completely transparent to the end user.
“Not only can groupSPARK resellers significantly increase their average revenue per user by offering hosted Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 but they can save a significant amount of money by outsourcing their technical support as well,” said Ravi Agarwal, groupSPARK chief executive officer. “Their customer receives best-in-class technical expertise and the reseller does not have to make substantial investments in IT, personnel, or other resources. It’s a win-win situation.”  Â
About groupSPARK Located in Burlington, Massachusetts, groupSPARK is a leading provider of SaaSÂ solutions, 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.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
The RIM and BlackBerry families of related marks,
images and symbols are the exclusive properties and trademarks
of Research In Motion Limited — used by permission. Research
In Motion, RIM, BlackBerry, BlackBerry Enterprise Server
and “Always On, Always Connected” are registered
with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and may be
pending or registered in other countries.
