The Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference brings together 10,000 Microsoft Partners to gain insight into business growth opportunities and Microsoft product innovation.  Through a series of presentations and events, partners will also share insights and experiences on the latest industry issues and strategies on business success.  groupSPARK was invited to join Microsoft in speaking on a number of topics including how to build a steady stream of recurring revenue through private-label hosted software services and the pros and cons of deploying an in-house SaaS solution vs. partnering with a private label provider.   groupSPARK’s presentation schedule follows: 

* Monday, July7th 10:45 AM - 12:00 PM, 2:30 - 3:35 PM, 310 BCEF
Small Business Symposium: Transformation To Software Plus Services: Expand Your Business By Selling Hosted Services With Your Brand
 Speakers: Greg Olsby, Microsoft, and Ravi Agarwal, groupSPARK
Do you want to add new revenue streams to your existing portfolio? Are you working to retain existing customers and attract new ones to your software-plus-services offerings? Hear how other Microsoft partners are successfully evolving their businesses to offer private-label hosted services.

* Monday, July 7th 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM, 351 E 
Industry Partner Forum: Hosting and Delivering Your Online Services
Speakers: Greg Olsby, Microsoft, and Ravi Agarwal, groupSPARK
Learn about the revenue opportunity in targeting other Microsoft partners — including value-added resellers, independent software vendors, and systems integrators — for private-label hosting. Discover how Microsoft partners like groupSPARK can help you capitalize on this vast opportunity.

* Tuesday, July 8th 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM, 352 EF 
Build a Recurring Revenue Stream: Resell Branded Hosted Services
Speakers: Michael van Dijken, Microsoft, and Ravi Agarwal, groupSPARK
With more companies looking to outsource IT to a service provider, there is tremendous opportunity for you to build a hosting business with minimal risk. Grow your business by reselling branded hosted services from a Microsoft hosting partner. Learn about this opportunity, hear from successful partners such as groupSPARK, and sign up today. 

* Tuesday, July 8th 2:00 - 2:30 PM, 5:30 - 6:00 PM - Microsoft Hosting Pavilion
Build vs. Partner:  When Is It Better to Partner With A Private Label Provider vs. Rolling Out Your Own SaaS Solution?
Speaker: Ravi Agarwal, groupSPARK
Interest in SaaS is exploding as SMBs demand anytime, anywhere access to their mission- critical data.  Service providers see the potential revenue and customer retention benefits of selling SaaS solutions.  The question is whether it is more advantageous to build your own in-house infrastructure or partner with a private label provider?  Time and cost of deployment, quantity of hardware, software, and training involved and need for experienced personnel are just a few of the many issues to consider.  This session will weigh the benefits and drawbacks to rolling out your own SaaS solution vs. partnering with a private label provider.

“The SaaS market continues to grow at a rapid pace as small and mid-size businesses discover that they can take immediate advantage of industry-leading Fortune-500 messaging and collaboration tools as hosted services at a price they can easily absorb.  Therefore, resellers are searching for a way to offer these services to their customers under their own brand, increasing customer retention and recurring revenue per user,” says Ravi Agarwal, founder and senior executive director of groupSPARK, a mindSHIFT company. 

“Through these sessions we will discuss how Microsoft partners can begin reselling private label hosted services to their customers in as little as 30 minutes, with no risk, and capitalize on this significant business opportunity. The ability to resell hosted Exchange Server 2007, hosted SharePoint Services, hosted Dynamics CRM and provide support for mobile devices under their own brand gives resellers a significant advantage over their competitors,” Agarwal said.

Worldwide Partner Conference attendees can visit with groupSPARK personnel on the Expo floor at booth #1070 as well as inside the Microsoft hosting pavilion.  Additionally, the company will be accepting the 2008 Microsoft Partner of the Year Award in the Advanced Infrastructure Solutions, Hosting Solutions category for its demonstration of both technical and business marketing innovation.  The award was announced on June 16, 2008 and will be officially presented to groupSPARK at an Executive Luncheon on Wednesday, July 9, 2008 at the Worldwide Partner Conference.  

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 3.0, and Dynamics CRM, which can be completely private labeled and resold by partners as a part of their own product offerings, thereby 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 names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
  

Contact Information:
Lisa Masiello
groupSPARK
781-273-6248 x652
lmasiello@groupspark.com
Sheila Biggs
Weber Shandwick
617-520-7020
sbiggs@webershandwick.com

The Microsoft Partner of the Year Award recognizes partners in a number of categories who are industry leaders and have a proven track record of developing and delivering to their customers best-of-breed, comprehensive Microsoft-based solutions to help them achieve outstanding business success. 

groupSPARK was chosen for this prestigious award from a pool of over 2,000 entrants worldwide.  The selection as the top Hosting Solutions Partner was based on the company’s demonstration of both technical and business marketing innovation. Its integration of Microsoft technology such as Microsoft Exchange Server, Windows SharePoint Services and Dynamics CRM with proprietary, industry leading automation tools enables groupSPARK resellers to go to market more quickly and cost effectively with a full suite of private label hosted services under their own brands. 

“We are pleased to see groupSPARK present reselling partners with increased opportunity to deliver richer applications and the power of choice,” said Robert Deshaies, Vice President, U.S. Partner Group, Microsoft Corp.  “Partners of any size can now offer hosted Microsoft Exchange Server based on groupSPARK’s service in as little as 30 minutes to customers using their own brand, domain, and corporate look-and-feel.”

“We are exceptionally honored to be selected from among thousands of Microsoft partners to receive the 2008 Microsoft Partner of the Year award in the advanced infrastructure solutions, hosting solutions category,” said Ravi Agarwal, founder and Senior Executive Officer of groupSPARK, a mindSHIFT company.  “We are delighted that Microsoft has publicly recognized our proven success as the leading provider of private label SaaS applications – worldwide.”

groupSPARK’s industry leading Private Label Application Delivery (PLAD) platform enables resellers to offer hosted Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 completely under the resellers’ brand.  This technology is the only one in the industry that allows for complete private label functionality, including every URL seen by the end customer.  This unique private label capability enables them to go to market in a significantly shorter amount of time - 30 minutes - incurring significantly less deployment expenses and allowing them to increase customer retention and monthly recurring revenue.  Couple that with outstanding customer service delivered via live 24 x 7 U.S.-based technical support and groupSPARK provides an unmatched hosted services solution to its reseller partners.   

About groupSPARK
Located in Burlington, Massachusetts, groupSPARK, a mindSHIFT company, is the leading provider of SaaS services, such as Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services v3.0, and Dynamics CRM, 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 address scalability and uptime concerns by leveraging groupSPARK’s 100% uptime SLA, live 24×7 U.S.-based support and proactive hardware and software monitoring capabilities. For additional information, visit www.groupSPARK.com.

###

Product or service names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Contact Information:
Lisa Masiello   
groupSPARK
781-273-6248 x.652
lmasiello@groupspark.com

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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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:

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

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

Ingram Micro Inc. (NYSE: IM) is the world’s leading distributor of technology products and services to the IT industry.  Ingram Micro’s Seismic Virtual Services Warehouse is part of the distributor’s North America Services Division which provides VARs with a full range of managed IT services, professional IT labor services, and warranty contract management services and enables VARs to offer customers a variety of hosted software services. This new agreement enables Ingram Micro Seismic to immediately offer industry leading private label hosted messaging and collaboration solutions from groupSPARK to partners in the U.S. and Canada.

groupSPARK’s unique Private Label Application Delivery (PLAD) platform was designed to enable resellers to offer the company’s hosted services completely under their own corporate brand, URL, and look and feel.  This private label solution reinforces the resellers’ brand with their customers, deepens their market penetration and enables them to offer their customers’ enterprise-class hosted email and collaboration solutions at a price set solely by the VAR.  In addition, groupSPARK’s hosted Exchange, hosted SharePoint and hosted CRM offering fortifies customer retention and provides Ingram Micro Seismic partners with the opportunity to earn additional monthly recurring revenue per user.

As part of Seismic’s hosted solutions portfolio, groupSPARK will maintain, monitor and upgrade all hardware and software allowing Seismic partners to offer these hosted software services to their customers without incurring any upfront expense, delay or risk in attempting to deploy the services on their own.  groupSPARK will also enable Seismic partners to offer 2-way wireless synchronization with BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), Windows Mobile and Good Mobile Messaging.

“Ingram Micro is at the forefront of the services market in the IT channel and remains committed to identifying best-in-class solutions for our Seismic partners,” said Justin Crotty, vice president of Ingram Micro Services Division, North America.  “We selected groupSPARK’s private label hosted Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint and Dynamics CRM services because of its focus on the VAR brand and its proven track record for providing VARs with affordable solutions that deliver the email and collaboration services small and mid-size businesses need to increase productivity and stay connected.”

“As the provider of hosted Exchange Server, SharePoint and CRM to Ingram Micro Seismic, we are dramatically increasing our reseller channel and reaching a new group of small and mid-size businesses,” said Ravi Agarwal, senior executive officer, groupSPARK division of mindSHIFT Technologies, Inc.  “Ingram Micro’s confidence in our hosted services offering and our best-in-class service and support is the direct result of our commitment to and focus on true private label hosting of enterprise-class services.”
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.

About Ingram Micro, Inc.
As a vital link in the technology value chain, Ingram Micro creates sales and profitability opportunities for vendors and resellers through unique marketing programs, outsourced logistics services, technical support, financial services, and product aggregation and distribution. The company serves 150 countries and is the only broad-based global IT distributor with operations in Asia. Visit http://www.ingrammicro.com.
###
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 x.652
lmasiello@groupspark.com

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

“Collaboration Online dramatically expands our market reach,” said mindSHIFT Chairman and CEO Paul Chisholm. “We are now able to provide small and mid-size businesses with additional enterprise-class messaging and collaboration tools which will assist them in increasing growth and corporate productivity. It also enables us to expand our geographic reach considerably.”

“We are delighted to join forces with mindSHIFT, an East Coast powerhouse of managed IT and VoIP services,” said Ravi Agarwal, CEO of Collaboration Online. “Their considerable resources will enable us to more quickly become the market leader in hosted services, reach more customers, and offer additional industry-leading hosted software services.”

Founded in 2002, Collaboration Online provides hosted Microsoft Exchange Server, Windows SharePoint Services and Microsoft Dynamics CRM to partners and small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) under multiple brands.

The company also markets its hosted SaaS offering as a private label service through a strong reseller channel. These resellers are able to market the company’s hosted services under their own brands using the company’s state-of the-art Private Label Application Delivery (PLAD) platform. The PLAD platform enables channel partners to resell the services as part of their own product offering, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in development and support costs.

The acquisition provides mindSHIFT with strategic value in three areas:

1. a high growth opportunity in the SMB market to provide a larger breadth of industry-leading enterprise-class hosted services
2. an automated and scalable provisioning and support platform that dramatically lowers the costs of customer acquisition and support
3. a successful and mature reseller program

About mindSHIFT Technologies, Inc.
With operations in Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington D.C., mindSHIFT is a leading Managed Services Provider (MSP) offering managed IT services, software-as-a-service (SaaS), VoIP, compliance, e-business application development and professional services to small and medium-sized organizations. The company’s portfolio of managed services provides a comprehensive solution which includes such critical services as email management and administration, electronic backup for servers and desktops, virus and spam protection, desktop support, and server management – either at the customers’ premises or completely off-site. Managed services customers are supported by both a 24-hour Network Operations Center for proactive management support and a call center which diagnoses and resolves all end-user desktop issues. For advanced and larger businesses, the company provides business application migrations, storage area network upgrades and complex hosting applications. Additionally, mindSHIFT has superior expertise and experience in meeting the compliance requirements of financial services firms, as well as the complex demands of the legal community for the integration of applications such as document management. For additional information, visit http://www.mindshift.com/.

About Collaboration Online
Headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, Collaboration Online, Limited Company is the leading provider of hosted enterprise-class messaging and collaboration solutions including hosted Microsoft Exchange Server, Windows SharePoint Services and Dynamics CRM.  These hosted services are offered on shared and dedicated servers to small and mid-size businesses around the world. Full mobile access is also offered for BlackBerry, Treo, PocketPC, SmartPhone and Windows Mobile handheld devices. Hosted Exchange customers receive free Outlook 2007, live 24×7 U.S.-based technical support, advanced spam and virus filtering and a 100% uptime guarantee on dedicated servers. 

mindSHIFT Technologies is a registered trademark of mindSHIFT Technologies, Inc.
All trademarks are the property of their respective companies.

###
Media Contacts:

mindSHIFT Technologies, Inc.
Vicki J. Brown
617-243-2729
vicki.brown@mindSHIFT.com

Collaboration Online, Limited Company
Lisa M. Masiello
781-273-6248, ext. 652
lmasiello@groupSPARK.com

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. 

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 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.
###
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Contact Info:
Lisa Masiello
groupSPARK
www.groupspark.com
781-273-6248 x652
lmasiello@groupspark.com

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 SaaS  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.

###

*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

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.

###

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

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.
###
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

 

Contact:
Lisa Masiello
groupSPARK
781-273-6248 x.652
lmasiello@groupspark.com

:: 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!*

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.

Sincerely,

Duane Batista
groupSPARK
email: dbatista@groupspark.com
phone: 781.273.6248
web: http://www.groupspark.com