When I posted a news release about Rockwell Automation's process control strategy and Dave Harrold's response, I asked about responses from others in the industry. Of course, that opened the door for some marketing spin, but it is an interesting topic. I just heard from my PR contact at ABB who forwarded some comments attributed to Mark Taft, Group Vice President, Process Automation, Control Systems Business. I'll post the unedited comment below, but first some context.
There are at least two (maybe three) strategies in this area. Rockwell Automation is finally serious about entering the process control market (I saw some strategy in 1993, but they have made a serious commitment in investment and people over the last two years or so) and has a strategy that goes something like this -- we have a large market share in North America in discrete control, much of which is in plants that have both our products and batch control products from DCS suppliers. If we can develop a credible batch process product, we can leverage our position in those companies to replace the legacy DCS with our batch product. I have had conversations with Invensys Foxboro who also has developed products designed to "migrate" companies from legacy (and perhaps obsolete) DCS products of competitors to the Foxboro platform.
But not every company has a strategy of "migration" from competitors' products. ABB has a strategy to unify all the platforms that it bought as it grew via acquisition. Therefore, the release of its 800xA platform. In this case, the strategy is "evolution" and is (initially at least) a different--but equally valid--strategy. As my favorite mantra goes, "I love competition." Here the strategy is well explained by Taft who addresses some of Dave Harrold's concerns:
This discussion really hits on some key issues that we have been discussing with our Customers for many years. One of our top priorities is to provide our customers with the functionality they need to be successful, while protecting the original engineering efforts and intellectual investments they have already made in their ABB control system, above and beyond the dollars spent.
ABB has an excellent history of developing new products in a way that allows our existing customers to adopt them at their own pace, with minimum risk to their current operations and with maximum investment protection. We have a twenty-five year track record of providing such capabilities for our operator interfaces, historians, control and other applications. This protection extends not only to the original engineering investment, but also addresses the investments made in training operators, writing operational procedures as well as the accumulated experience gained over years of use and interaction with the system. Preserving the previous system functionality and related knowledge enables the Customer to continue to benefit from this valuable intellectual investment when adding new functions.
Control system evolution, not replacement, has always been - and continues to be - ABB's method to provide a viable and productive path forward for our customers. It has been an underlying requirement for the development of every generation of control system we have undertaken since the introduction of DCS in the 1980s, and is a key part of delivering value to our customers while minimizing lifecycle costs. Evolution and investment protection continue to be cornerstones of our development programs. This approach helps our Customers successfully manage the lifecycle of their automation investment--and maintain that important balance between the ongoing effectiveness of their existing system investment and the additional productivity and capacity benefits that come from introducing new technology.
8:41:30 AM 
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