groupSPARK Helps MSPs, VARs, ISVs and IT Consultants Reach for the Cloud with Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Hosted Edition and Hosted SharePoint Foundation 2010

WALTHAM, MA, February 18, 2011 (Press-News.org) groupSPARK, a division of mindSHIFT Technologies and leading provider of private label cloud-based SaaS services, today announced the immediate availability of Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Hosted Edition and Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 to the reseller channel. Leading IT analyst firm, Gartner, Inc., forecasts that one out of every five businesses will own no IT assets by 2012, running all applications in the cloud. groupSPARK's private label SaaS services bring together the resellers seeking industry-leading services like hosted Microsoft Exchange and hosted SharePoint Foundation with customers that require enterprise-class business tools with guaranteed availability for a predictable monthly fee.

groupSPARK resellers can now make Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 available to their clients as a shared or dedicated server offering with larger mailbox sizes of 25 GB and larger email attachment sizes of 50 MB. Clients can also receive a copy of Microsoft Outlook 2010 or Entourage 2008 and a free SharePoint site. Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 includes email enabled lists, support for multiple browsers, enhanced compliance features, out-of-the-box web parts, business connectivity services and improved task automation. groupSPARK will continue to offer hosted Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 for those resellers who wish to offer a choice of solutions to their clients.

The hosting market traditionally requires an initial capital investment of $250,000-$500,000 for servers, enterprise-grade SAN, software and additional infrastructure, with an added $200,000 per year in ongoing expenses. Resellers are choosing to partner with groupSPARK because they are able to go to market immediately using their own brand without incurring any capital expenses or the need to deploy a large and sophisticated infrastructure.

"Small businesses are always looking for a competitive advantage and the demand for enterprise-class business tools at a cost they can afford continues to grow every day," said William Flynn, groupSPARK general manager. "Our groupSPARK partner program gives resellers a stable, secure and highly reliable infrastructure on which they can sell best-in-class messaging tools like Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and SharePoint Foundation 2010 to their small business clients."

groupSPARK's private label service enables resellers to create their own custom cloud, allowing them to:
• Enhance the relationship they have already built with their customers
• Set their own retail prices
• Purchase as few or as many services as needed
• Strengthen their own brand using groupSPARK's private label capability
• Increase customer retention with additional cloud-based business services
• Achieve a $100+ ARPU potential

About groupSPARK
Located in Waltham, Massachusetts, groupSPARK, a division of mindSHIFT Technologies, is a leading provider of cloud-based services including Microsoft Exchange Server, SharePoint Foundation, email archiving, desktop backup, spam filtering and more which can be private labeled and resold by partners as a part of their own product offerings, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in development and support costs. Partners are able to address scalability and uptime concerns by leveraging groupSPARK's 100% uptime SLA, 24x7x635 U.S.-based support and proactive hardware and software monitoring capabilities. For additional information, visit http://www.groupSPARK.com.