ROK vs A Comparison

With roots tracing back to the early 1900s, Rockwell Automation is the successor to Rockwell International, which spun off its avionics segment in 2001. It is a pure-play industrial automation company that operates through three segments. Its largest segment by revenue, intelligent devices, sells factory floor-level devices such as motors, drives, sensors, relays, and actuators. Its software and control segment sells visualization, simulation, and human-machine interface software and control products such as programmable controllers, computers, and operator terminals. Its smallest segment, lifecycle services, offers digital consulting, engineered-to-order services, and other outsourced services such as remote monitoring, cybersecurity, and asset and plant maintenance and optimization.

Originally spun out of Hewlett-Packard in 1999, Agilent has evolved into a leading life science and diagnostic firm. Today, Agilent's measurement technologies serve a broad base of customers with its three operating segments: life science and applied tools, cross lab consisting of consumables and services related to life science and applied tools, and diagnostics and genomics. Over half of its sales are generated from the biopharmaceutical, chemical, and advanced materials end markets, which we view as the stickiest end markets, but it also supports clinical lab, environmental, forensics, food, academic, and government-related organizations. The company is geographically diverse, with operations in the US and China representing the largest country concentrations.