"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]
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 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 – June 4, 2007 – groupSPARK, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and the leading Software as a Service (SaaS) provider of private label services including Microsoft Exchange Server, announced today that it is now offering private label Hosted Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, which provides significant upgrades to the industry-leading platform for e-mail, mobility and collaboration. This private label Hosted Exchange Server 2007 is immediately available to channel partners and resellers to help meet the unique messaging needs of their customers. Â
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groupSPARK is the first provider to bring private label Hosted Exchange Server 2007 to market using the Microsoft Solution for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration (HMC) Version 4.0 – the only platform that Microsoft has designed, tested and validated for Exchange Server 2007 hosting.
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Benefits of Private Label Hosted Exchange. According to a recent survey of the hosted services market by Osterman Research, the market for Hosted Microsoft Exchange Server will grow from its current base of 1.4 million mailboxes to over 7 million mailboxes by 2009. This growth represents over $600 million in new revenues. In order to get started in the SaaS market, an Exchange hosting provider needs to spend between $250,000 - $500,000 in capital expenses for servers, enterprise-grade SAN, software and systems as well $200,000 on an ongoing basis(1)
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“With the substantial growth in demand for collaborative messaging, more and more service providers are interested in offering Hosted Microsoft Exchange Server 2007,†said John Zanni, director of Worldwide Hosting at Microsoft Corp. “By working with companies such as groupSPARK, who utilize the Microsoft HMC platform, resellers can offer their customers advanced messaging and collaboration solutions, and increase their revenue per user with minimal risk and time to market.â€groupSPARK enables its channel partners/resellers to be up and running in minutes without incurring high initial investments or recurring management costs. As part of groupSPARK’s private label SaaS offering, their state-of the-art Private Label Application Delivery (PLAD) platform allows partners/resellers to easily re-brand its entire service so that all URLs, logos and contact information on its control panel are branded with the partners’ look and feel. The partner can also integrate the branded control panel into their own web portal, thus, providing their end customers a completely seamless experience of utilizing services provided by the partner versus those hosted by groupSPARK. Alternatively, if a partner prefers to keep the customer experience within their existing control panel, PLAD also exposes an XML Web Services API for provisioning, billing and reporting functionality. These capabilities and integration options have allowed large and small partners to offer Hosted Microsoft Exchange Server using groupSPARK’s platform.
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“groupSPARK partners are able to significantly increase their average revenue per user by offering hosted Microsoft Exchange Server as an additional service to their customers,†stated Ravi Agarwal, groupSPARK chief executive officer. “They can take advantage of our powerful private label technology and are able to utilize Microsoft’s validated HMC technology for Exchange Server Hosting without any of the upfront investment or time delay. This lets them take advantage of the explosive growth in the hosted Microsoft Exchange Server marketplace.â€
About groupSPARK Located in Burlington, Massachusetts, groupSPARK is a leading provider of SaaS Â 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, 24×7 U.S.-based support and proactive hardware and software monitoring capabilities. Â
(1)groupSPARK internal estimates for a platform which will scale up to 10,000 mailboxes. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. Â
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
Burlington, MA, October 2, 2006 – groupSPARK today announced the signup of the 500th partner for its GAIN Partner Program. Working from the ground up groupSPARK developed PLAD - Private Label Application Delivery™ Platform - which enables channel partners and resellers to private label the entire Hosted Exchange service – including SharePoint, Blackberry Server, and Good Server. This allows the partners to provide this valuable solution to their small-mid sized customers and create an easy recurring revenue stream with no ongoing work and minimal investment.
“Until recently, ISPs and hosting companies had to develop the service in-house requiring a large capital investment for both equipment and manpower to implement and maintain a Hosted Exchange offering†says Ravi Agarwal, CEO of groupSPARK. “groupSPARK provides this needed service to ISPs and hosting companies allowing them to tap into a nearly untouched billion dollar market. We are one of the fastest growing Exchange Hosting companies in the U.S. and reaching this 500 partner milestone proves this out.â€
Only four months ago, groupSPARK announced their 400th Hosted Exchange Partner had signed. “We have been very aggressive with the press and trade shows. Microsoft has invited us to speak with them and to have a presence in their booths at trade shows. All of these factors are definitely helping us continue to grow.†says Mr. Agarwal.
Burlington, MASSACHUSETTS, May, 2006 – Arguably the biggest improvement in Exchange 2003 Service Pack 2 is the efficient Public Folder Settings Wizard allowing for seamless system administration. The addition of this new software package is more than welcoming to the tech support team at GROUPspark.com, a leading exchange hosting company and provider of useful exchange server related news and events, http://www.groupspark.com.
The new Public Folder Settings Wizard replaces the old dated propagate settings with a new “manage settings†selection from the “All Tasks†menu. The older propagate settings were accessed through the menu commands allowing administrators to copy specified properties of a selected public folder to the subfolders beneath it. Now with the selection of “Manage Settings†once right-clicking an administrator is prompted with an easy to follow wizard system.
The Public Folders Wizard will allow an administrator to choose one of three options; modify client permissions, modify lists of replica servers and overwrite settings – make sure to use the settings of the folder that you selected to overwrite the settings of all of its subfolders.
In addition to the Public Folders Wizard, Service Pack 2 has a plethora of options allowing for easier administrator from the ability to synchronize hierarchy, stopping and resuming public folder content replication, tracking public folder deletions, and the ability to delete public folder stores.
Although these additions found in Service Pack 2 can not create a fool proof system things are getting close. Now with the addition of the Public Folder Settings Wizard, administrators can manage their network users and permissions with much ease and organization reducing the amount of clutter commonly found in network hierarchies.
About GROUPspark
GROUPspark, Inc is the #1 rated Exchange Hosting company, thanks to our outstanding uptime, delightful customer service and laser-like focus on running robust Microsoft Exchange 2003 servers.
For nine years now - since 1997, we’ve been in the hosting business. And for the last five years, we have been helping small businesses leverage the power of Microsoft Exchange Server. Our servers are located in a tier-1 data center. With multiple layers of redundancy and focus on the highest levels of security, our infrastructure is designed to make you productive and secure.
For additional information about GROUPspark.com and their exchange hosting, check their web site at http://www.groupspark.com/.
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.
