In The Know: Top 5 Must-Read Cloud Stories, March 18

Talkin’ Cloud at the end of each day pulls out five must-read cloud computing stories from the news cycle for its readers to review in the morning. Today’s column features Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), IBM (IBM) and Twitter (TWTR).

Some of these stories have been gathered from Talkin’ Cloud’s article database, while others have been collected from elsewhere. If we missed something, feel free to leave a comment below. We might just add it into the mix.

Here’s today’s list of must-read cloud computing stories.

How Nike Is Getting To Production Fast. Nike (NKE) has implemented Michael Porter’s view of technology becoming an integral part of product value into its business. Fitness is a key area where IoT wearable technologies combined with new apps will become differentiating factors that influence which new sports shoes and clothes we buy. It’s therefore essential that the corporate IT team recognizes and keeps up with this shift, and how Nike is doing so is described in this video of their presentation at Amazon’s 2014 Re:invent conference, where Jason Robey talks through their move to a ‘microservices’ approach to application development

Hybrid Cloud: Destination Or Pit Stop?. Amazon has maintained over the years that ultimately public cloud is the only logical choice for future data centers and that, given enough time, all organizations will realize this and simply migrate everything to Amazon a public cloud. Yet data seems to suggest otherwise. Literally and figuratively speaking.

IBM, Twitter Announce Cloud Data Services. Business professionals now can leverage IBM cloud data services to isolate Twitter data and use it to “uncover powerful correlations that drive more actionable insights.” IBM and Twitter today unveiled cloud data services that allow business professionals and developers to extract business analytics from Twitter data.

TC 100 Profile: TekLinks Delivers ‘Anything-as-a-Service’. Many cloud services providers (CSPs) deliver either on-premise and value-added reseller (VAR) solutions or fully managed and cloud-powered offerings. Conversely, TekLinks is an exception; it provides both successfully. TekLinks is a Birmingham, Alabama-based  IT solutions provider that ranked 70 on last year’s Talkin’ Cloud 100 list of the top 100 CSPs. But unlike many Talkin’ Cloud 100 list honorees, TekLinks embraces “anything-as-a-service” (XaaS).

HP Global Partner Conference 2015 Day 1 Roundup. HP kicked off its Global Partner Conference 2015 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, where the recently divided company outlined its plans to help partners adjust to the new order of business.

Follow CJ Arlotta on Twitter @cjarlotta and Google+ for further updates on the story above — or if you just want to say hello.