Chapter 10 - Networking: Market Competition 1981-1983
10.19 General Electric
General Electric (GE) had been involved in networking ever since Metcalfe had convinced them to pursue the HomeNET project in 1979. Rumors frequently circulated about GE’s networking strategy. Then in April 1982 GE announced a baseband networking scheme designed to tie industrial electronic equipment together in manufacturing facilities. Quoting from Electronic News, April 4, 1982:
GE enters the local network market competing for installations in the factory against Gould’s Factory Automation division. Future entrants in that market niche are expected to include Texas Instruments, Siemens and Schlumberger. In the OEM market, GEnet will compete against such vendors as Xerox, Sytek, Amdax and Ungermann-Bass.
GEnet was to be a 5 megabit per second network based on a proprietary version of Ethernet.
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CMC company records.