Who is the midmarket customer? That question is being asked with increased frequency across the global IT industry It has become common knowledge among market watchers that the midmarket business sector will help drive global IT industry spending in the near future with an annual growth rate of 12percent ( AMI-Partners 2004 ). Overall, global software sales also have grown at 11 percent year over year as midmarket businesses increasingly adopt more sophisticated technology solutions. And amid this market groundswell, Microsoft is experiencing increasing momentum for its software solutions among midmarket organizations. Yet serving this customer group in a consistent way has largely been an industry mystery due to the fact there is no singular way in which these customers define themselves. The midmarket customer, viewed at Microsoft as a business with 50 to 1,000 employees, profiles their needs most often by the vertical industry in which they operate. Their business processes are often more diverse and complex than small business, nearing sophistication levels of the enterprise, yet IT staff and budgets remain relatively small. To drive further misunderstanding, the midmarket segment often is lumped alongside small business in the industry as "SMB."