§ Formation [ edit ]

Plan of Schenectady plant, 1896 [ 8 ]

During 1889, Thomas Edison had business interests in many electricity-related companies: Edison Lamp Company. a lamp manufacturer in East Newark. New Jersey; Edison Machine Works. a manufacturer of dynamos and large electric motors in Schenectady, New York ; Bergmann & Company. a manufacturer of electric lighting fixtures. sockets. and other electric lighting devices; and Edison Electric Light Company. the patent -holding company and the financial arm backed by J.P. Morgan and the Vanderbilt family for Edison’s lighting experiments. [ 9 ] In 1889, Drexel, Morgan & Co.. a company founded by J.P. Morgan and Anthony J. Drexel. financed Edison’s research and helped merge those companies under one corporation to form Edison General Electric Company which was incorporated in New York on April 24, 1889. The new company also acquired Sprague Electric Railway & Motor Company in the same year. [ 10 ] [ 11 ]

At about the same time, Charles Coffin. leading the Thomson-Houston Electric Company. acquired a number of competitors and gained access to their key patents. General Electric was formed through the 1892 merger of Edison General Electric Company of Schenectady, New York, and Thomson-Houston Electric Company of Lynn. Massachusetts, with the support of Drexel, Morgan & Co. [ 11 ] Both plants continue to operate under the GE banner to this day. [ 12 ] The company was incorporated in New York, with the Schenectady plant used as headquarters for many years thereafter. Around the same time, General Electric’s Canadian counterpart, Canadian General Electric. was formed.

§ Public company [ edit ]

In 1896, General Electric was one of the original 12 companies listed on the newly formed Dow Jones Industrial Average. After 118 years, it is the only one of the original companies still listed on the Dow index, although it has not been on the index continuously. [ 13 ]

§ RCA [ edit ]

§ Television [ edit ]

In 1927, Ernst Alexanderson of GE made the first demonstration of his television broadcasts [ 15 ] at his General Electric Realty Plot home at 1132 Adams Rd, Schenectady, NY. On January 13, 1928. he made what was said to be the first broadcast to the public, [ 15 ] on GE’s W2XAD. the pictures were picked up on 1.5 square inch (9.7 square centimeter) screens in the homes of four GE executives. The sound was broadcast on GE’s WGY (AM) .

§ Power generation [ edit ]

GE’s history of working with turbines in the power-generation field gave them the engineering know-how to move into the new field of aircraft turbosuperchargers. [ citation needed ] Led by Sanford Alexander Moss. GE introduced the first superchargers during World War I, and continued to develop them during the Interwar period. Superchargers became indispensable in the years immediately prior to World War II, and GE was the world leader in exhaust-driven supercharging when the war started. This experience, in turn, made GE a natural selection to develop the Whittle W.1 jet engine that was demonstrated in the United States in 1941. [ citation needed ] GE ranked ninth among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts. [ 16 ] Although their early work with Whittle’s designs was later handed to Allison Engine Company. GE Aviation emerged as one of the world’s largest engine manufacturers, second only to the British company, Rolls-Royce plc .

In 2002, GE acquired the windpower assets of Enron during its bankruptcy proceedings. [ 17 ] Enron Wind was the only surviving U.S. manufacturer of large wind turbines at the time, and GE increased engineering and supplies for the Wind Division and doubled the annual sales to $1.2 billion in 2003. [ 18 ] It acquired ScanWind in 2009. [ 19 ]

Some consumers boycotted GE light bulbs, refrigerators and other products in the 1980s and 1990s to protest GE’s role in nuclear weapons production. [ 20 ]

§ Computing [ edit ]

GE had a line of general purpose and special purpose computers. Among them were the GE 200. GE 400. and GE 600 series general purpose computers, the GE 4010, GE 4020, and GE 4060 real time process control computers, the DATANET-30 and Datanet 355 message switching computers (DATANET-30 and 355 were also used as front end processors for GE mainframe computers). A Datanet 500 computer was designed, but never sold.

In 1962, GE started developing its GECOS (later renamed GCOS) operating system. originally for batch processing. but later extended to timesharing and transaction processing. Versions of GCOS are in use today.

From 1964 to 1969, GE and Bell Laboratories (which soon dropped out) joined with MIT to develop the Multics operating system on the GE 645 mainframe computer. The project took longer than expected and was not a major commercial success, but it demonstrated concepts such as single level store. dynamic linking. hierarchical file system. and ring-oriented security. Active development of Multics continued until 1985.

It has been said that GE got into computer manufacturing because in the 1950s they were the largest user of computers outside the United States federal government. aside from being the first business in the world to own a computer. Its major appliance manufacturing plant Appliance Park was the first non-governmental site to host one. [ 21 ] However, in 1970, GE sold its computer division to Honeywell. exiting the computer manufacturing industry, though it retained its timesharing operations for some years afterwards. GE was a major provider of computer timesharing services, through General Electric Information Services (GEIS, now GXS), offering online computing services that included GEnie .

On June 27, 2014, GE partnered with collaborative design company Quirky to announce its connected LED bulb called Link. The Link bulb is designed to communicate with smartphones and tablets using a mobile app called Wink app. [ 22 ]

§ Acquisitions [ edit ]

In 1986, GE reacquired RCA, primarily for the NBC television network (also parent of Telemundo Communications Group ). The remainder was sold to various companies, including Bertelsmann (Bertelsmann acquired RCA Records ) and Thomson SA which traces its roots to Thomson-Houston, one of the original components of GE.

Also in 1986, Kidder, Peabody & Co.. a U.S.-based securities firm, was sold to GE and following heavy losses was sold to PaineWebber in 1994. [ 23 ]

In 2002, Francisco Partners and Norwest Venture Partners acquired a division of GE called GE Information Systems (GEIS). The new company, named GXS. is based in Gaithersburg, Maryland. GXS is a provider of B2B e-Commerce solutions. GE maintains a minority stake in GXS.

In 2004, GE bought 80% of Universal Pictures from Vivendi. Vivendi bought 20% of NBC forming the company NBCUniversal. GE then owned 80% of NBC Universal and Vivendi owned 20%. By January 28, 2011 GE owned 49% and Comcast 51%. On March 19, 2013, Comcast bought GE’s shares in NBCU for $16.7 billion. [ 26 ]

Genpact formerly known as GE Capital International Services (GECIS) was established by GE in late 1997 as its captive India based BPO. GE sold 60% stake in Genpact to General Atlantic and Oak Hill Capital Partners in 2005 and hived off Genpact into an independent business. GE is still a major client to Genpact getting its services in customer service, finance, information technology and analytics.

In May 2007, GE acquired Smiths Aerospace for $4.8 billion. [ 27 ]

In 2007, GE Oil & Gas acquired Vetco Gray for $1.9 billion, [ 28 ] [ 29 ] followed by the acquisition of Hydril Pressure & Control in 2008 for $1.12 billion. [ 30 ] [ 31 ]

GE Plastics was sold in 2008 to SABIC (Saudi Arabia Basic Industries Corporation). In May 2008, GE announced it was exploring options for divesting the bulk of its consumer and industrial business.

General Electric’s Schenectady, New York facilities (including GE’s original headquarters) are assigned the ZIP code 12345. (All Schenectady ZIP codes begin with 123, but no others begin with 1234.)

On December 3, 2009, it was announced that NBCUniversal will become a joint venture between GE and cable television operator Comcast. The cable giant will hold a controlling interest in the company, while GE retains a 49% stake and will buy out shares owned by Vivendi. [ 32 ]

Vivendi will sell its 20% stake in NBCUniversal to GE for US$5.8 billion. Vivendi will sell 7.66% of NBCUniversal to GE for US$2 billion if the GE/Comcast deal is not completed by September 2010 and then sell the remaining 12.34% stake of NBCUniversal to GE for US$3.8 billion when the deal is completed or to the public via an IPO if the deal is not completed. [ 33 ] [ 34 ]

On March 1, 2010, General Electric (GE) announced that the company is planning to sell its 20.85% stake in Turkey-based Garanti Bank. [ 35 ]

In August 2010, GE Healthcare signed a strategic partnership to bring cardiovascular Computed Tomography (CT) technology from start-up Arineta Ltd. of Israel to the hospital market. [ 36 ]

In October 2010, General Electric acquired gas engines manufacture Dresser Inc. for a $3 billion deal and also bought a $1.6 billion portfolio of retail credit cards from Citigroup Inc. [ 37 ] [ 38 ]

On October 14, 2010, GE announced the acquisition of data migration & SCADA simulation specialists Opal Software. [ 39 ]

In December 2010, for the second time this year (after Dresser acquisition), General Electric Co. bought the oil sector company British Wellstream Holding Plc. an oil pipe maker for 800 million pounds ($1.3 billion). [ 40 ]

In March 2011, GE announced it has completed the acquisition of privately held Lineage Power Holdings, Inc. from The Gores Group, LLC. [ 41 ]

In April 2011, GE announced it had completed its purchase of John Wood Plc’s Well Support Division for $2.8 billion. This acquisition expands the extensive drilling and surface manufacturing and services portfolio of GE Oil and Gas, a division of GE Energy. [ 42 ]

GE Capital sold its $2 billion Mexican assets to Santander for $162 million and exit the business in Mexico. Santander will additionally assume the portfolio debts of GE Capital in the country. The transaction was finished in 2011. GE Capital will focus in the core business and will shed its non-core assets. [ 43 ]

In June 2012, CEO and President of GE said that the company would invest 300 crores to accelerate its businesses in Karnataka. [ 44 ]

In October 2012, General Electric Company acquired $7 billion worth of bank deposits from Metlife Inc. [ 45 ]

In April 2013, General Electric Co acquired oilfield pump maker Lufkin Industries for $2.98 billion. [ 46 ]

In April 2014, it was announced that GE was in talks to acquire the global power division of French engineering group Alstom for a figure of around $13 billion. [ 47 ] A rival joint bid was submitted in June 2014 by Siemens and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) with Siemens seeking to acquire Alstom’s gas turbine business for €3.9 billion, and MHI proposing a joint venture in steam turbines, plus a €3.1 billion cash investment. In June 2014 a formal offer From GE worth $17 billion was agreed by the Alstom board. Part of the transaction involved the French government taking a 20% stake in Alstom to help secure France’s energy and transport interests, as well as French jobs. A rival offer from Siemens-Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was rejected. The acquisition was expected to be completed in 2015. [ 48 ]

In October 2014, GE announced it was considering the sale of its Polish banking business Bank BPH. [ 49 ]

§ Stock [ edit ]

General Electric went public in 1892 on the New York Stock Exchange. GE is a Dow Jones and S&P 500 component.