A Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and the leading provider of private label hosted software services including Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM, groupSPARK, announced that it has been named by Microsoft as its 2008 Partner of the Year in the Advanced Infrastructure Solutions, Hosting Solutions category.

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 are recognized by the Microsoft Partner of the Year Award.

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

Founder and Senior Executive Officer of groupSPARK, a mindSHIFT company, Ravi Agarwal, stated: "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." He adds: "We are delighted that Microsoft has publicly recognized our proven success as the leading provider of private label SaaS applications - worldwide."

Completely under the resellers' brand, groupSPARK's industry leading Private Label Application Delivery (PLAD) platform enables resellers to offer hosted Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. This technology is the only one in the industry that allows for complete private label functionality, including every URL seen by the end customer. Incurring significantly less deployment expenses and allowing them to increase customer retention and monthly recurring revenue, this unique private label capability enables them to go to market in a significantly shorter amount of time - 30 minutes. 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.