This helped make the fewer Timberline VARs much larger than the typical MAS VAR when the partners were brought into the Sage channel. As a result, they tended to be over-represented in the President's Circle. Because Timberline also had its own users' conference, its customers were flocked to Sage's Summit when that became the meeting place for them and they came in numbers far outweighing their numbers as a proportion of Sage's user base in North America. By the way, one mark of the recession is that Sage has not purchased a  company this year.