Rockwell Automation delivered a double dose of upbeat news this week, reporting a 17% increase in quarterly sales on the heels of its disclosure that it will purchase Incuity Software Inc., a purveyor of enterprise manufacturing intelligence software.

For its second quarter of fiscal 2008, ended March 31, Rockwell reported sales of $1.4 billion, a 17% improvement on $1.2 billion in the second quarter of 2007. Income from continuing operations reached $142.8 million, up from $120 million in the year-prior quarter, as foreign currency translation and acquisitions contributed 6 percentage points and 4 percentage points, respectively, to the growth, the company said.

The fiscal Q2 results were in line with expectations but demonstrated a different mix of product and regional performance than had been expected. One financial analyst on a conference call this morning described it as “a good quarter, but with a lot of moving parts.”

Specifically, Rockwell’s core process automation business grew 21% organically, with recent acquisitions, such as Pavilion Technologies and ISC Triplex boosting growth even higher. However, Rockwell’s Logix integrated control platform slipped in the quarter, growing only 7% compared with 15% in the first quarter .

Keith Nosbusch, Rockwell’s chairman and CEO, told financial analysts that he is not satisfied with the performance of Logix, the vendor’s automation control platform, and said the company is taking aggressive measures to fuel growth through every region, customer, and channel.

Two possible areas that might fuel Logix growth are Asia and Latin America, where Rockwell is seeing a rise in organic sales.

However, Nosbusch was quick to point out that the deceleration of Logix sales directly reflects acceleration in the company’s process business. Rockwell’s thriving process market favors MES and information software over control technology, according to the company. In addition, as customers replace legacy DCSs, many tend to do so through software upgrades that keep the existing I/O and processor intact, rather than rip-and-replace installations of Logix, for instance. Also, he said, continuous processing is a less logic-intensive control environment than a discrete, batch, or hybrid environment.

“Process is a good market; it’s just that it’s not as rich [in] logic content as discrete,” Nosbusch told Managing Automation in an interview. “When we are growing [the process business] at a fast rate, [Logix] is just going to naturally get pulled down.”

Nevertheless, Nosbusch predicted that the Logix business will reach double-digit growth again, but in the 10%-to-15% range rather than the 20% growth rate the company experienced earlier.

Nosbusch said he sees another shift occurring. “Control and automation have been driving productivity for manufacturers for a number of years now,” he said. “We believe the next wave of significant productivity improvement will come about by the utilization of all of the data that exists in the controller we put on plant floor … and the ability to take that information and turn that data into actionable knowledge,” he said.