The General Electric Company, or GE (nyse: GE), is a multinational American technology and services conglomerate incorporated in the State of New York. In terms of market capitalization as of September 30, 2008, GE is the world's tenth largest company. In the 1960s, aspects of U.S. tax laws and accounting practices led to a rise in the assembly of conglomerates. GE, which was a conglomerate long before the term was coined, is arguably the most successful organization of this type.Fact: date=March 2009

History

By 1890, Thomas Edison had formed Edison General Electric which brought together several of his business interests together under one corporation. At about the same time, Thomson-Houston Company under the leadership of Charles A. Coffin gain access to a number of key patents through the acquisition of a number of competitors. Subsequently, General Electric was formed by the merger in 1892 of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston Company.

In 1896, General Electric was one of the original 12 companies listed on the newly-formed Dow Jones Industrial Average and still remains after years (it is the only one of the original companies remaining on the Dow— though it has not continuously been in the DOW index).

The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was founded by GE in 1919 to further international radio.

General Electric was one of the eight major computer companies through most of the 1960s — with IBM, the largest, called "Snow White" followed by the "Seven Dwarfs": Burroughs, NCR, Control Data Corporation, Honeywell, RCA, UNIVAC and GE. 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 computer manufacturing 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 reacquired RCA, primarily for the NBC television network. The remainder was sold to various companies, including Bertelsmann and Thomson SA.

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, MD. GXS is a leading provider of B2B e-Commerce solutions. GE maintains a minority ownership position in GXS.

In 2004 GE bought Vivendi's television and movie assets, becoming the third largest media conglomerate in the world. The new company was named NBC Universal. Also in 2004 GE completed the spin-off of most of its mortgage and life insurance assets into an independent company, Genworth Financial, based in Richmond, Virginia.