More than two decades after exiting the television manufacturing business, General Electric Co (GE) is entering a new joint partnership that will make GE-branded flat panel TVs that connect to the Internet.
The giant conglomerate is granting the use of its brand for 10 years and taking a 49 percent stake in the venture with Tatung Co (大同) of Taiwan to make the liquid-crystal displays that also play Internet videos.
The online functionality requires a separately sold set-top box that the venture hopes to eliminate in later versions. For now, a standard remote — without a keyboard or mouse — will direct online navigation and TV programming.
“Instead of just flipping through channels, people want to command and control it,” said Peter Weedfald, chief marketing officer for the joint venture, General Displays & Technologies LLC.
But longtime former GE executive Noel Tichy, a professor at the School of Business at the University of Michigan, downplayed the investment for the company, which posted US$173 billion in revenue last year.
“This is not a huge strategic move,” Tichy said. “The revenues off this are going to be a rounding error.”
The product, to be made at Tatung’s plants in China, Taiwan and Mexico, is expected to hit shelves in March or April in North America. Pricing has not been determined.
General Electric sold its GE and RCA divisions to Thomson SA in 1987 and ended 66 years of GE-branded TVs in 2005.
The company hopes to capitalize on studies showing that most of the many people who use computers to watch TV programs would prefer to watch them on regular TV sets.
GE will use its subsidiary, NBC Universal, to supply Internet videos and overcome the technical difficulties in doing so.
“Being part of the GE family, those conversations happen seamlessly,” said Darren Feher, NBC Universal’s chief technology officer.
Weedfald said GE had high expectations for the venture.
“Their expectation of us is to grow and be a major player over the next three to seven years,” he said.
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