Immelt was only the most recent in a long line of GE managers who got it wrong.
GE was running trans-Atlantic time-sharing in the late 1960's. It was worldwide in the early 70's (meaning US, western Europe, Australia, Japan and probably a couple of others I've forgotten). The "Information Services Business Division" used email for its daily business from the early 70's - long before it was legally permitted to offer it as a service to others.
Some observant folks might have noticed that GE's class A (in old-speak) IP block is 3.xxx.xxx.xxx. That's right - the first one allocated (0, 1 and 2 were reserved). By contrast, Apple's is "17" and Microsoft is "92".
We GE folks were there in the early days and helped build it all. Then crass, stupid management pissed it all away. Immelt was not the worst, just the most recent.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
