Former Azure Evangelist Joins Aditi as Cloud Services GM

Another former Microsoft (MSFT) employee has turned up in a cloud management role at a smaller player in the market. David Aiken, who was one of the driving forces behind Windows Azure and its original technical evangelist, as joined Bangalore, India-based Aditi Technologies as general manager of cloud services.

Aiken played a huge role in the development of Azure since the early days of the cloud platform’s creation, including delivering the first set of Software Design Reviews and onboarding its first customers. In a pre-sales role, Aiken supported several of Microsoft’s largest customers and, prior to leaving Microsoft, was leading the Windows Azure Technical Product Marketing team.

For Aditi, which touts itself as a “cloud first” technology services company, Aiken brings with him a vast amount of cloud knowledge. That could give the cloud services provider an edge in the continuing development of its global strategy.

Currently, Aditi boasts more than 150 customers that now run their businesses with cloud platforms across IaaS, PaaS and SaaS offerings.

Additionally, Aditi has been a top Microsoft Cloud Partner for the last few years, so recruiting Aiken makes even more sense. Windows Azure isn’t Aditi’s only focus as it continues to grow as a cloud-focused IT services provider. It also works with Amazon (AMZN) Web Services, Rackspace (RAX) and Salesforce.com (CRM).

“Aditi has made many strategic investments to bolster our capabilities for delivering to the public cloud. Over the last year, we’ve built a strong Windows Azure practice with several Windows Azure MVPs (Most Valuable Professionals) and cloud architects, developer services available from the Windows Azure Store, as well as key offerings around the newly launched Windows Azure Infrastructure Services,” said Wade Wegner, CTO of Aditi Technologies, in a prepared statement.

Aditi currently has more than 1,400 employees around the world and specializes in IaaS migration, SaaS enablement, data orchestration and mobile workloads.