Object-oriented programming promises to solve many key problems of software construction such as reuse, extensibility, and maintainablity. In conjunction with class libraries or application frameworks, object-oriented programming promises improvements in quality and productivity as well. Nevertheless, a great part of object-oriented applications still resides in the domain of graphical user-interfaces, and most class libraries are general-purpose libraries mainly including data structure classes and classes for graphical user-interfaces. ... In technical and industrial domains, where few programs are implemented and where domain-specific libraries are of greater importance than general-purpose libraries, software development is not well supported by application frameworks, yet. This is why object-oriented programming is not fully accepted in these application domains. Process automation systems are typical technical applications. This paper compares conventional with object-oriented process automation systems to the potential of the latter for technical systems.