Des Plaines, Ill.—ABB Industrial Systems (Rochester, N.Y.) has "reengineered its AdvaBatch for the Microsoft world," Rick Salisbury, Batch Development manager, told Control Engineering editors here. AdvanBatch 2.0 for Windows NT extends capabilities of ABB's Unix-based offerings, improving on recipe configuration and maintenance, tracking, history and reporting. It targets food and beverage, pharmaceutical, fine chemical, and consumer product process that require S88-based solutions. Using DCOM, Microsoft's distributed component object model, the software allows combinations of "objects" (small software programs) to produce desired results. Up to five AdvaBatch clients can operate in an ActiveX "container." ABB is moving from individual Unix- and Windows-based products to systems that operate across platforms to full solutions that allow users plug-and-play best-of-class, integrated solutions from ABB and other vendors, Mr. Salisbury says. The software will be featured Oct. 19 at ISA Expo/98, Houston.