Cloud computing doesn’t just mean deploying a platform and calling it a day. No indeed-y, the technology has grown far more sophisticated than that. That seems to be the theme of this week’s cloud news roundup, which showcases — from Amazon Web Services’ new Smart City competency to a report on the cloud skills dearth — just how much organizations need cloud channel partners.

You already know that AWS develops a competency for just about everything. But now, with rising demand for governments to get more efficient while delivering better services, the applicability of a smart city certification has come to fruition. Find out what AWS public sector head Jeff Kratz tells Channel Futures about that initiative.

After that, if you’re looking for more information on what Salesforce’s new Genie platform means for the channel, we have some details. Recall, Salesforce debuted that “real-time” capability for all of its Customer 360 solutions at Dreamforce this week. The company is going so far as to call Genie “the most significant change” to its CRM platform ever. That’s a bold statement, so partners will want to understand the reason for it.

Up next, Ingram Micro Cloud has a big Microsoft integration announcement. The cloud marketplace provider calls that enhancement the “continuation of a long-term … strategy” to enable its partners. We go into what all of that is (and you’ll have to forgive us some Lewis Carroll “Jabberwocky” references. You’ll see why.).

Finally, we’ve got two new cloud studies that contain implications for the channel. The first, courtesy of Wanclouds, relates to cloud spending via a survey of more than 500 IT leaders in the United States. The second comes from tech workforce development firm Pluralsight. Moreover, that report pinpoints a lack of cloud skills within organizations. That ought to surprise no cloud channel partner, many of whom are dealing with their own talent shortages.

Kick off your cloud news update this week in the slideshow above with a look at the AWS Smart City competency, and understanding why that’s important.