Pythonpowered machine learning with Anaconda and MS partnership

Anaconda, Inc. has announced it is partnering with Microsoft to embed Anaconda into Azure Machine Learning, Visual Studio and SQL Server to deliver data insights in real time. Microsoft and Anaconda will partner to deliver Anaconda for Microsoft, a subset of the Anaconda distribution available on Windows, MacOS and Linux. Anaconda, Inc. will also offer a range of support options for Anaconda for Microsoft.

Anaconda for Microsoft will initially be included in Microsoft Azure Machine Learning, Machine Learning Server, Visual Studio and SQL Server. In SQL Server, data scientists will be able to run Python code inside the database, eliminating the need to export data for processing. This accelerates the performance of Python data science on SQL Server, and improves data security and confidentiality.

“Data scientists can now apply the power of Anaconda Python to derive insights and make predictions in real time from inside Microsoft products and services, providing a competitive advantage in any market,” said Scott Collison, CEO of Anaconda, Inc. “We’re delighted to work with Microsoft to advance the practical application of enterprise data science.”

As part of the agreement, Anaconda will also make Microsoft R Open packages available by default to Anaconda users who also use the R language using Anaconda’s R Essentials package. Additionally, Visual Studio Code, R Client and R Tools for Visual Studio Code will be added to the Anaconda Navigator, which helps orient data scientists to the Anaconda ecosystem.

'With Anaconda distributing Microsoft R and Microsoft including Anaconda distribution in Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Services and Microsoft Visual Studio, our data platform and cloud customers can do high performance analytics and machine learning with some of the best open source and proprietary frameworks available,' said Joseph Sirosh, Corporate Vice President, Data Group, Microsoft Corp. 'By combining both R and Python in SQL Server, we are facilitating the expansion of data science across the enterprise.'