The Waters Millennium³² software controls the Waters Alliance LC system, encompassing a variety of the company's pumps, autosamplers, and detectors, plus the Capillary Ion Analysis (CIA) unit. There is also a module of Millennium for performing gel permeation chromatography control and calculations, as well as one for the Alliance (Tablet) Dissolution system. In the LC/MS arena, Millennium³² controls the Waters Integrity mass spectrometer, and instruments from Waters Micromass division use the MassLynx NT software developed by Micromass. This software will also control the Waters Alliance system, including the 2690 Separations module and the 990 PDA detector.

The Millennium and MassLynx software will likely remain separate for the foreseeable future, but Waters and Micromass are striving to make the programs work well together. One possibility would be to use the database and custom reporting functionality of Millennium with mass spectral data.

The Hewlett-Packard ChemStation (16-bit but with promises of a 32-bit version) appears to lead the way in number of techniques controlled from a single program. The Multitechnique version controls HP's GC, LC, LC/MS (both MSD and ESQUIRE ion trap devices), CE, and several other HP analog-to-digital (A/D) products. A separate GC/MS ChemStation is also available.

ThermoQuest, the chromatography-based company in the Thermo Instruments family, has introduced two major 32-bit software platforms. The ChromQuest entry controls the GC, LC, and CE instruments from the company subsidiaries Thermo Separation Products and CE Instruments (formerly Carlo Erba). In the mass spectrometry software, the newly introduced Xcalibur software is an ambitious offering from Finnigan that promises to control virtually all of the various GC/MS and LC/MS products marketed by Finnigan. This includes the LCQ and GCQ ion trap systems and the Navigator (LC/MS) and Voyager (GC/MS) quadrupole systems, and the SSQ and TSQ (single- and triple-stage quadrupoles).

The Varian Star Version 5.0 controls the Varian GC family (3400, 3600, and 3800), as well as the Varian 9000 series of LC modules, and the company recently released an update to control the SD-200 and SD-300 pumps and the UV-1 detector. In addition, the Varian Saturn GC/MS product is replacing its older DOS/Windows product with a new one that has much in common with the Star workstation. Varian hopes to upgrade many of the existing GC/MS customers. The company also sells the Macintosh-based Dynamax software.

In the Dionex product line, the PeakNet is the company's all-encompassing software product, controlling the DX-120 ion chromatograph, the DX-500 HPLC and IC systems, and the DX-800 process IC. The PeakNet Version 5.1 software is responsible for some of the attractiveness of the new Dionex EG40 Eluent Generator. The PC software keeps close tabs on the instrument (which has no front panel) to give the user a complete picture of the amount of eluent that has been generated and indicates when the disposable cartridges need to be changed.

Beckman-Coulter maintains two separate software platforms, with one product targeted for controlling the company's System Gold Nouveau HPLC and the P/ACE System MDQ CE instruments. The other product is the Beckman PeakPro system, which comes from the company's Laboratory Automation Operations (LAO) and is targeted primarily at large pharmaceutical, chemical, and petrochemical laboratories. The instrument control switched from the old Digital Research GEM graphical display to Windows a few years ago, and the LAO group is now putting its resources mainly into Windows NT products.

Shimadzu for the past several years has marketed two different chromatography packages, one developed in Japan and the other in the US. At the Pittcon '98 show, Shimadzu announced that in the future it would have just one platform, and it would control both GC and LC instruments. The product, called CLASS-VP, is a modern 32-bit program with strong custom reporting aspects. Shimadzu markets a separate, Japanese-developed program for its GC/MS and LC/MS product lines.

SRI Instruments makes portable gas chromatographs and has a CDS called Peak Simple, which the company bundles with each gas chromatograph. There is a 16-bit version of the software for Windows 3.11 and a 32-bit version for Windows 95. The data system is also sold as a stand-alone product, so it can also be used for LC and GC data processing.

Scientific Software Inc. (SSI) introduced its 32-bit platform, EZChrom Elite, some time ago, and has already released a number of revisions with additional control features. Control of the HP 5890 GCs is available, but most of the EZChrom data collection is done using the company's 4-channel, 24-bit A/D board. SSI continues to sell a 16-bit version of software, called EZ Chrom, now at version 6.7. SSI has also been very successful in marketing special versions of its software to a variety of instrument manufacturers, many of whom have their own special attributes in the software. SSI has also been a leader in the move to a client/server implementation.

Thermo LabSystems recently introduced a major new chromatography software product called Atlas, which is the company's first thrust into the Windows NT market. LabSystems was formerly part of the VG company, and is the division that specializes in chromatography data handling and LIMS (laboratory information management systems). LabSystems is part of Thermo BioAnalysis, which is part of Thermo Instrument Systems.

In the past LabSystems was well known for having a CDS product line that ran on a wide variety of computer operating systems and hardware platforms. But the company has now turned nearly all of its skills to the Windows NT platform. In addition to the Atlas data system, the company recently introduced the Nautilus program, which competes in the PC-based LIMS arena. LabSystems is unique in that much of the development effort for Atlas was done in close cooperation with major international pharmaceutical companies, in a joint venture arrangement.

Hitachi, the first chromatography instrument company to support Windows NT, has continued to enhance its main product, the D-7000 HPLC Multi System Manager. This software controls up to four HPLC systems and also controls the Hitachi photo diode array detector with a full complement of functions. The software makes extensive use of multimedia by including an HPLC troubleshooting guide and a parts manual as an integral part of the CDS system.

Justice Laboratory Software now has a 32-bit version of its ChromPerfect software. For some time the company marketed a DOS-based ChromPerfect, which it specifically touted as not being Windows, but all development is now done for Windows 95/98 and NT. The Justice ChromPerfect Magellan product is targeted at the sophisticated multi-instrument user, whereas the ChromPerfect LE is for the entry-level, single-instrument user. A client/server version is also available. The Justice products use A/D boards, PE Nelson 700 and 900 interfaces, and the HP 5890 and 6890 for data collection.

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