It seems something about the economy of the last 18 months tipped the economic discussion more towards use of channels. Another item in this newsletter notes Epicor's plan to use the channel to increase sales capacity. At the event, Ron Gill, NetSuite’s SVP of finance and soon to be CFO, touched on the vendor’s ability to offset costs. The comments grew out of discussions about how NetSuite has delivered service to end users at a break-even point, or even below breakeven during the recession, to acquire new business. “We think of professional services as sales and marketing; it’s a cost of acquiring a customer,” Gill said. But channels live on professional services and NetSuite believes it can change the formula. Use of a channel will offset both upfront costs and some ongoing customer costs, the latter, for example, including channel maintenance sales and support of endusers. “We are pretty happy with the economics of the channel,” Gill noted. Although the channel provides 20 percent of NetSuite’s revenue, as it has for several quarters, NetSuite is out to increase that percentage. However, the company has yet to name any VARs that it has signed on during the recruitment drive.