Since SugarCRM is a privately held company that was invited to a financial conference for public companies, it would seem the mating dance of the initial public offering may have entered its first steps. Augustin told the group that the company, which has 230 employees currently, had 135 at the start of the year and would have 270 by its end. The exec said Sugar has 340 resellers worldwide and that 60 percent of revenue comes from the channel. "Our business the last three years has been very mid-market channel focused," he said and this should not come as a surprise to the ERP resellers in this space that have been courted. Augustin also gave a reason why VARs should look at CRM--60 percent of Sugar's new customers don't have CRM. Augustin claimed Sugar is third in CRM market share with 18.8 percent. This is based on the format of downloads requested by members of Jigsaw, which provides business data services. Salesforce.com was No. 1 and Sage's Act was No. 2. Microsoft came in No. 3 with 5.4 percent.