Riccardo Becker works fulltime as a Principal IT Architect for Logica in the Netherlands. He holds several certifications and his background goes back to 1998 where he started working with good ol ́ Visual Basic 5.0 (or was it 6.0?). Since then he has held several roles including developer, lead developer, architect, project leader, practice manager and recently, he decided to accept the role of Principal IT Architect where he focuses on innovation, cutting-edge technology and specifically on Windows Azure and cloud computing in general. In 2007 he joined the Microsoft LEAP program where he got a glance at the move Microsoft was about to make on their road to the cloud. Pat Helland give him that insight and since the first release of Windows Azure on PDC 2008, he started focusing on it, keeping track of the progress and the maturity of the platform. In the last few years, he also did a lot on incubation for his employer, raising awareness of cloud computing in general and Windows Azure.