IBM said it will ramp up efforts to sell cloud computing services to midsize businesses. The move is aimed at grabbing market share from companies like Amazon.com Inc and Salesforce.com Inc, which have been successful in the mid-market.

Mid-sized is apparently any company with less than 1,000 employees. The company's general manager in charge of small and medium-sized businesses, Andy Monshaw, said that cloud computing was now cheap enough to reach a bigger base of smaller customers.

Of course in some cases Biggish Blue will have to explain to the companies what a cloud is and why it is a good idea to have your data stored in a different place.