More mid-sized businesses are ready to turn to cloud computing, according to new findings from tech consulting firm The Armada Group. Theyre not ready to make the journey alone, though, which spells opportunity for channel partners developing their cloud portfolios and sales techniques.

About two-thirds of respondents to Armadas Cloud Readiness Assessment said they already use virtualization and think cloud services, too, will shore up expenses. But, on their own, they dont quite know how to achieve those savings.

“In medium-sized companies, we found that while 62 percent are using virtualization and 71 percent have a defined IT architecture, most of them 79 percent do not have a roadmap for cloud computing,” said Jeff Tavangar, president of The Armada Group.

Meanwhile, two-thirds of respondents, or 67 percent, said theyre interested in cloud-based storage. However, only 4 percent of those companies are using the application.

The main advantage they see to cloud computing is that they believe that it provides cost savings over traditional IT methodology,” Tavangar said. Based on this, Armada sees a large market for helping businesses to define the best way to migrate their existing applications to the cloud.”

Other Armada Group findings about mid-size businesses cloud readiness include: