We’ll admit we don’t know all that much about how Channel Maven Dave spends his free time.  For that matter, we don’t know all that much about how he spends his busy time.  We run a pretty casual work environment here at Channel Maven Central, and we generally only see Dave as he rushes in to drop off a Channel Spotlight just before deadline, muttering, “One size fits none.”  The next thing we know, he’s jumped into his powder-blue AMC Pacer and driven off at moderate warp speed.  So, when we saw Carolyn April’s blog discussing Profitops, the new channel program at Oki Data Americas, it gave us pause to wonder if Channel Maven Dave has a straight job.  Dave routinely exhorts channel strategists and architects to avoid the impulse to build monolithic channel structures, favoring multifaceted programs built around mutual understanding of end-users’ needs.  This philosophy is spookily harmonious with Profitops, as described by Stewart Krentzman, CEO of Oki Data Americas; the Oki Data program seeks to get right down to the business-planning level with channel partners, and seems to be built to be tailored to individual partners’ needs.  Ms April usefully wonders how much vendor control channel partners want on their business plans.  We’d judge that as long as a vendor doesn’t turn this curiosity into a reporting exercise, and uses the insight into its partners’ business aspirations to drive demand, both parties should benefit.  We’ll be watching Profitops as it rolls out; in the meantime, we’re checking out Dave’s expense reports to see if we’ve paid for any phone-booth rentals.