The , or '''GE''' () is a multinational technology and services company. According to the
Forbes Global 2000 it is the world's second-largest company. It should not be confused with
The General Electric Company Plc , which was renamed
Marconi Plc in
1999 .
In the
1960s , peculiarities in U.S. tax laws and accounting practices made it fashionable to assemble
Conglomerates . GE, which was a conglomerate long before the term was coined, is one of the very few corporations to achieve great success with this kind of organization.
In
1876 ,
Thomas Alva Edison opened a new
Laboratory in
Menlo Park ,
New Jersey . Out of the laboratory was to come perhaps the most famous invention of all—a successful development of the
Incandescent Electric Lamp . By
1890 , Edison had organized his various businesses into the .
In
1879 ,
Elihu Thomson and
Edwin J. Houston formed the rival
Thomson-Houston Electric Company . It merged with various companies and was later led by Charles A. Coffin, a former shoe manufacturer from
Lynn, Massachusetts .
Merger s with competitors and the
Patent rights owned by each company put them into dominant positions in the electrical industry. As businesses expanded, it became increasingly difficult for either company to produce complete electrical installations relying solely on their own technology. In
1892 , these two major companies combined, in a merger arranged by
Financier J. P. Morgan , to form the General Electric Company, with its headquarters in
Schenectady, New York .
In
1896 , General Electric was one of the
Original 12 companies listed on the newly-formed
Dow Jones Industrial Average . GE is the only one that remains today.
The
Radio Corporation Of America (RCA) was founded by GE and
American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) in
1919 to further international
Radio .
Between
1927 and
1935 , 52 different inventions in electricity were introduced to the company by
Hassan Kamel Al-Sabbah . General Electric was one of the eight major
Computer companies (with
IBM - the largest,
Burroughs ,
Scientific Data Systems ,
Control Data Corporation ,
Honeywell , RCA and
UNIVAC ) through most of the
1960s . GE had an extensive 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, and the Datanet 30 message switching computer. A Datanet 600 computer was designed, but never sold. It has been said that GE got into the computer manufacturing business because in the
1950s they were the largest user of computers outside of the
United States Federal Government . In
1970 GE sold its computer division to Honeywell.
In
1986 , GE re-acquired RCA, primarily for the
NBC television network. The rest was sold to various companies, including
Bertelsmann and
Thomson .
In
2004 , GE bought the television and movie assets of
Vivendi Universal and became the third largest media conglomerate in the world. The new company was named
NBC Universal . Also in
2004 , GE completed the
Spinoff of most of its
Life and
Mortgage Insurance assets into an independent company,
Genworth Financial , based in
Richmond, Virginia . In that same year, GE also acquired the
Credit Card unit of the
Department Store Dillard's for $1.25 billion.
In
2005 , General Electric bought the financial assets of the
Canadian airplane manufacturer
Bombardier for $1.4 billion
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In
2006 , General Electric completed the $1.2 billion acquisition of IDX Systems, a medical software company.
GE is an enormous multinational industrial company headquartered in
Fairfield, Connecticut . The company describes itself as composed of a number of primary business units or "businesses." Each "business" is itself a vast enterprise, any of which would, even as a standalone company, rank in the
Fortune 500 . The list of GE businesses varies over time as the result of
Acquisitions ,
Divestiture s and
Reorganization s.
In 2005, GE launched its "Ecomagination" initiative in an attempt to position itself as a "green" company. Currently the company is one of the biggest players in the wind power industry and also developing new environment friendly products such as hybrid locomotives and photovoltaic cells. The company has also set goals for its subsidiaries to lower their greenhouse gas emissions.
Through these businesses, GE participates in a wide variety of markets including the generation, transmission and distribution of
Electricity ,
Lighting , industrial
Automation ,
Medical Imaging equipment,
Motor s,
Railway Locomotive s,
Aircraft Jet Engine ,
Aviation services and materials such as
Plastic s,
Silicone s and
Abrasive s. It was co-founder and is 80% owner (with Vivendi Universal) of
NBC Universal , the National Broadcasting Company. Through GE Commercial Finance, GE Consumer Finance, GE Equipment Services, and GE Insurance it offers a range of financial services as well. It has a presence in over 100 countries.
Interestingly, over half of GE's revenue is derived from
Financial Services , ostensibly making it a financial company with a manufacturing arm. It is also one of the largest lenders in countries other than the United States, such as
Japan . Even though the first wave of conglomerates (such as
ITT ,
Ling-Temco-Vought ,
Tenneco , etc) fell by the wayside by the mid-
1980s , in the late
1990s , another wave (consisting of
Westinghouse ,
Tyco , and others) tried and failed to emulate GE's success.
General Electric has one of most valuable corporate brands in the world."
Top 100 Global Brands Scoreboard ." '', a new customized font, called
GE Inspira , and a new slogan, ''"imagination at work"'' replacing the longtime slogan ''"we bring good things to life"''. The new brand requires many headlines to be lowercased and adds visual "white space" to their documents and advertising to promote an open and approachable company. The new brand was designed by
Wolff Olins and is used extensively on GE's marketing, literature, and corporate website. GE BrandCentral[http://www.gebrandcentral.com] is a website dedicated to managing the brand and requests for font and logo usage. It is closed to the public.
The
CEO from
1981 -
2001 was
Jack Welch , who many regard as one of the premier business
Managers of his era. Nicknamed "Neutron Jack", he presided over a 28-fold increase in
Earnings (on a 5-fold increase in
Revenue ) with his policy (referred to by detractors as "
Rank And Yank ") of sacking the worst performing 10% of his staff every year. In running GE's many diverse businesses he maintained a policy of only keeping those businesses which were #1 or #2 within their respective industries. In
1987 , GE was the United States' second largest
Nuclear Power company and third largest producer of
Nuclear Weapon s systems. Jack Welch introduced the use of the
Six Sigma Quality System , originally developed at
Motorola , within GE.
For more on Jack Welch, check out his book "Straight From the Gut."
The company's , GE was named number one company for employers and employees on the
Forbes 500 Global Player list.
, Sir
William Castell (Vice Chairman, and Executive Officer),
Dennis Dammerman ,
Ann Fudge ,
Claudio Gonzalez ,
Jeffrey Immelt ,
Andrea Jung ,
A.G. Lafley ,
Robert Lane ,
Ralph Larsen ,
Rochelle Lazarus ,
Sam Nunn ,
Roger Penske ,
Robert Swieringa ,
Douglas Warner , and
Bob Wright .
Over the years, GE has received several awards honoring them for their accomplishments, values and reputation:
In Fortune Magazine's 2005 "Global Most Admired Companies" list, GE ranked first overall. (February 2005)
In Fortune Magazine's 2005 "America's Most Admired Companies" list, GE ranked second overall. (February 2005)
GE was named to the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index as one of the world's leaders in environmental, social and economic programs.
GE ranked ninth on Fortune Magazine's "50 Most Desirable MBA Employers" list. (April 2004)
General Electric has agreed to pay the
Environmental Protection Agency to clean up three
Superfund sites contaminated with
Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs). The three superfund sites are composed of a 200 mile stretch along the
Hudson River , a section of the
Housatonic River in
Pittsfield, Massachusetts and a transformer facility near
Rome, Georgia .
See
Yahoo! analyst converage
