Azure Machine Learning -- First Impressions

For the last year and a half I have been using Watson Studio and DSX Local as my development environments for exploring machine learning and implementing models. Inspired by Siraj Raval's video on Azure Machine Learning I decided to take the plunge and check out Microsoft's ML environment. This posting covers my first impressions, the good and the bad, and contrasts Azure ML with Watson Studio / DSX. Getting a first taste of Azure ML from a standing start is relatively easy -- here's a quick overview of the preparatory steps: As Siraj notes in his video, Microsoft touts a hybrid (on prem cloud) approach. Before getting into the experience of using Azure ML, I'd like to contrast my experience of "hybrid" Microsoft vs. IBM: Full disclosure: I am an IBM employee, but I can see pros and cons to both approaches.