Even consultants agree that CIOs will have to focus on shoring up their internal staffs' cloud computing know-how.

"By 2016, there will be more deployments of software in the cloud than on premise," says TriBridge's Pierce. "If that holds true, then right now you can't afford not to build those skills in your organization. The best way to build talent is to start doing cloud deployments and learn as you go."

David Nichols, CIO Services Leader for Ernst & Young, agrees. "The vast majority of these skills will have to be rebadged," he says. "CIOs will have to take a component of their workforces and get them skilled and up to speed. A lot of this will be trial by fire."

As Majestic Realty's experience shows, the "learn as you go" approach to cloud deployments is fraught with lessons learned, but right now it's the company's only viable option. Despite the difficulties Majestic Realty faced getting answers to their BPOS questions, Grunzweig's staff still managed to complete the project on schedule, migrating the whole company in groups over a six-week period.

The benefit of the "learn as you go" approach is that it results in a stronger, more knowledgeable IT staff--and one that will be better prepared to work on additional cloud deployments that Grunzweig is contemplating, such as cloud-based virus protection and CRM. Clearly, the challenges Grunzweig and staff have encountered migrating to cloud-based email and data back-up have not scared them off.