Mindshift Technologies, which sells managed IT and VoIP services, has acquired Burlington, Massachusetts-based Collaboration Online, a privately-owned vendor of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS (News - Alert)) products for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

 

Collaboration Online does business under multiple brands such as GroupSpark and AgileWave CRM, selling hosted Microsoft (News - Alert) Exchange Server, Windows SharePoint Services and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

 

"Collaboration Online dramatically expands our market reach," said Mindshift Chairman and CEO Paul Chisholm, explaining the reason for the deal. "We are now able to provide SMBs with additional messaging and collaboration tools. It also enables us to expand our geographic reach."

 

Ravi Agarwal, CEO of Collaboration Online, pronounced himself "delighted to join forces with Mindshift."

 

Founded in 2002, Collaboration Online sells hosted Microsoft Exchange Server, Windows SharePoint Services and Microsoft Dynamics CRM to partners and SMBs under multiple brands. The company also markets its hosted SaaS offering as a private label service through a reseller channel.

 

These resellers are able to market the company's hosted services under their own brands using the company's Private Label Application Delivery platform.

 

Last summer GroupSpark announced that it is now offering 24x7 private label tier-1 technical support for its resellers as an optional service.

 

This service is immediately available to channel partners and resellers so that they can provide customers with comprehensive technical support and simultaneously save money.

 

Resellers can take advantage of GroupSpark's internal infrastructure, technical expertise and leadership in the private label Hosted Microsoft Exchange Server marketplace by outsourcing technical support for their customers as well. The customer "will be unaware that their technical support is being provided by GroupSpark," company officials say.

 

GroupSpark's hosted SaaS offering includes Dynamics CRM, which can be completely private labeled and resold by partners as a part of their own product offerings saving them hundreds of thousands of dollars in development and operational costs.