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GE switches off light bulb business after almost 130 years
General Electric has finally found a buyer for its lighting business and will be selling off its last consumer-facing business after more than 120 years of operation.
Boston-based GE said today it would divest the lighting business to Savant Systems, a smart home management company also based in Massachusetts. The companies did not disclose financial terms of the deal, but sources told The Wall Street Journal that the transaction was valued at about $250 million.
Savant specializes in full smart home systems for the luxury market. Acquiring a lighting business directly will allow it to take advantage of vertical integration and take more control over the physical equipment it installs in consumer' homes. Savant will keep the business's operations in Cleveland, where it is currently based, and will receive a long-term license to keep using the GE branding for its products.
The lighting business is GE's oldest segment, dating all the way back to the company's founding through a series of mergers with Thomas Edison's companies in the late 1880s and early 1890s.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by aristarchus on Thursday May 28 2020, @05:38PM (7 children)
From Planned Obsolescence, in The Paris Review [theparisreview.org], 2014.
He's still out there, somewhere!
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday May 29 2020, @03:38AM (6 children)
Reminds me of automotive batteries- they die right around the end of the warranty.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @04:54AM (5 children)
Around the same time as the lead-acid battery, a nickel-iron battery car battery was developed.
It never took off because it had several downsides;
- a self-discharge of 2 to 3% per day,
- 1.2V per cell, requiring 10 cells instead of six
- lower capacity because the cells had to be smaller (mitigated by being able to use the full capacity)
- required regular top-ups of distilled water
- lasted forever
The advantages were all on the consumer side;
- incredible tolerance for abuse
- overcharging just broke down the H2O, refill the water and it was fine.
- running it to completely flat did no damage, charge it and it was fine
- every five years or so (depending on just how well distilled the top up water was) you needed to replace the cheap potassium hydroxide electrolyte.
- other than top ups and electrolyte change it lasted forever.
Naturally, the battery companies hated it. The few people who got them, kept them even when the sold their cars, and transferred them to their new cars.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday May 29 2020, @05:51AM
Some years ago I knew someone who had a bank of Edison cells- nickle-iron- exactly what you described. He loved them, for all the reasons you described.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday May 29 2020, @09:50AM (3 children)
That's a huge disadvantage for me. I've gone a month without starting my car.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @10:00PM (2 children)
It's not always all about you khallow.
Or just add one of those parcel-shelf solar chargers to keep it topped up.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday May 31 2020, @05:18PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2020, @07:20PM
Most people who only use a car 12 times a year work out that it is cheaper to get a taxi or hire a car than to own one.