Contributing to the increase red ink was a 3-point drop in gross margin, which fell to 85 percent from 88 percent a year earlier. Part of the margin loss stemmed from  hiring in the services area of personnel not yet contributing to results. Sales and marketing expense rose to just under $61 million, an increase of 20.7 percent from $50.1 million. Despite the red ink, it was clear from this week's earnings webcast that analysts saw it as a good quarter. . CEO Lars Bjork outlined improvements planned in the release of QlikView Next this year. That includes improvements in the user interface. “We will improve the overall look and feel of QlikView and make it drag-and-drop simple for anyone in their organization to make compelling analysis,” he said. The company’s channel contributed an increasing portion of revenue. The indirect channel generated 63 percent of license and first-year maintenance billings, compared to 53 percent a year ago. Among its resellers are accounting and consulting firms Armanino, Cohn Reznick, Eide Bailly, McGladrey, Templeton & Co. and Wipfli; traditional VARs InterDyn AKA, MaxQ Technologies; CRM reselling specialist Infinity Info Systems, and OEMs such as CCH, the former Sage NonProfit Solutions and Deltek.