Company awarded for advanced infrastructure solutions, hosting solutions.

groupSPARK, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and a provider of private label hosted software services, today announced that it has been named by Microsoft as its 2008 Partner of the Year in the Advanced Infrastructure Solutions, Hosting Solutions category.

The company states that 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.

It adds that it 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."