Apple looking for a few good cloud execs?

Apple is seeking to ramp up its cloud leadership as the company puts a greater emphasis on how customers store and access their data.

The company is looking to recruit executives with backgrounds in Web-based software, according to a Wall Street Journal report tonight. One prominent Internet entrepreneur has already been approached and recruiters have been briefed on the company's needs, people familiar with the matter told the Journal.

The talent search comes on the heels of Apple's launch of iTunes Match, a cloud feature that stores music tracks in the cloud and makes them available on any device with iTunes. The $24.99-a-year service is being touted as a big step in bringing user music libraries into the Web era, where people want to access their music--not just tracks they've bought through Apple--anywhere and everywhere.

Another Apple cloud effort comes in the form of iCloud, a cloud-based storage and syncing service in which users can view, add, or change Contacts, input events into Calendar, and store documents.

Apple apparently is going on a hiring spree to ensure that it's ready for the anticipated onslaught in interest in the services. In October, it was revealed that Apple had hired away Scott Noteboom, chief of Yahoo's Global Data Center Infrastructure.

Apple has also reportedly spent $1 billion to build a 500,000-square-foot behemoth of a data center in Maiden, N.C., which some have begun calling the "orchard." Apple hasn't said how it will use the server farm, but there is speculation that it will power the cloud services that Apple is working on, according to numerous sources.