For midsized companies, moving to the cloud isn’t easy. Midsized organizations — generally defined those employing anywhere from 50 to 500 people — lack the massive IT departments (or budgets) of large enterprises. Nor do they see the potentially high savings enjoyed by much smaller businesses. On both points, they’re somewhere in the middle.

That’s certainly not to say channel partners offering cloud products and services should ignore these midsized companies. On the contrary, moving to the cloud can bring these clients huge benefits, including greater scalability and flexibility, fewer IT-management issues, and a shift to pay-for-use spending.

But for the channel partners that serve them, more than a little expertise is required. “Midsized businesses are our toughest clients,” says Mike Aquino, director of cloud services at Cetan Corp., a Chesapeake, Virginia-based provider of cloud, collaboration and workload-automation solutions. “They have limited IT staff, and the IT savings might not be as much as with others. So we normally go with some kind of hybrid solution.”

The situation is delicate, Aquino explains. While midsized companies typically have their own IT staff, those IT staffs are smaller and may be less knowledgeable than the massive IT departments of large enterprises. The result? “You do a bit more,” Aquino says.

Security is a good example. “The number one fear in the cloud is security,” Aquino says. “We get a lot of medium‑sized business, and they always say it’s security, security, security.”

How deal with that midsized concern? “I look around their data center and start checking off things that are not secure,” Aquino offers. “I say, ‘This is going to cost this, this and this. But if you go to the cloud, that’s already done for you. You don’t have to pay for that security.’ ” So midsized businesses still stand to save by making the transition.

Demand for the cloud is strong and clear. Microsoft recently reported that commercial cloud revenue more than doubled during its most recent fiscal quarter, ending Dec. 31. That business — driven by Office 365, Azure and Dynamics CRM Online — is now on an annualized revenue run rate of $5.5 billion, the company says. To be sure, not all of that is from midsized companies. But who wants to miss out on a business that’s more than doubling each year?

Not Aquino. His company is also a Microsoft partner. “The greatest benefits we receive from Microsoft is that their cloud solutions are really designed for partners,” he says. “They come ready to be installed with all the marketing, all the support. Everything is there. So basically, it’s just learning the technology. And all the services that go behind developing and selling that product are given to you in a format that’s really easy use.”

For midsized clients, moving to the cloud presents unique challenges. And for the channel partners that serve them, it’s a unique opportunity, one with the potential for big rewards.