Mike,
My name is Mike from National Instruments. Unfortunately I am not familiar with Steeplechase, so I cannot give you a comparison on the subject. I can, however, give you my (biased) opinion on why to use LabVIEW as opposed to an alternative software programming tool. Specifically, I have worked extensively in LabVIEW and I can speak to its features and benefits.
LabVIEW is incredibly easy to use as a programming language in general, but also when used to acquire and analyze data or communicate with instruments. You mentioned that your applications would perform assembly and quality checks. Test systems make up a very common architecture for LabVIEW applications, and our developer zone would be able to assist you with your design. Furthermore, our support system at National Instruments is organized with the goal of making you successful using our products. For additional feature descriptions, check out the LabVIEW product site.
You mentioned that you would need to communicate with an AS/400 and possibly a GEMBA system. There are several options for communicating with other systems based on the way the system communicates. Do you know how your AS/400 server will be communicating? Will that host a web server or will you just need to access files on that server? In either case LabVIEW offers methods for talking to that system, provided there is a network or physical link. Please let me know if this information is helpful for you or if I can provide any other assistance. Thanks very much,
Mike Duffy
National Instruments
Applications Engineer
