Revenue rose to about $142 million, up 6 percent from last year's corresponding period. CEO Thomas Honoré noted the U.S. results reflected a loss of roughly $626,000 in SMB business that had been announced in the first half. During this week's earnings webcast, the executive said, however, that results for this country are expected to improve for 2018. "We already seeing demand ticking up in September and October," Honoré said. "We see our consultants are coming back into play." He attributed the decline to the conversion of customers from license software to the cloud. However, some in the channel indicate Microsoft's confusing fall statements about the future of its SMB products—Dynamics GP, NAV and SL—are taking a toll on sales. North American revenue reached approximately $51.5 million, an increase of 5.3 percent from the first nine months of 2016. Service revenue on the continent rose to about $33 million, an increase of 13 percent while external subscription revenue rose to roughly $12.1 million, a 7.5-percent increase. External licenses (read mainly Microsoft) dropped 22 percent to approximately $4.5 million. While Columbus discussed results for the United States, the number for this country are reported in the North American totals, but represent most of that category.