Whatever the personal differences between inventor and
company, and precarious financial situation GE, the Company
paid handsomely for Edison's time connection with lamp
research and manufacture.
Edison wanted make money innovating and saw few prospects
in the reorganized electrical industry; was too big and too
competitive. His whole purpose in
founding the West Orange laboratory was able move out
of highly competitive markets into more profitable areas. Yet Edison had reason maintain interest in
electrical supply and manufacture. The formation often
interpreted watershed Edison's association with
electricity. This work formed the largest single project for the
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Edison laboratory the early 1890s. Over the five years from 1890
to 1895 EGE, and its successor GE, paid the laboratory over
$121,000 for its work improving and developing electrical
equipment. Edison's laboratory was fitted into
GE's corporate strategies.VI-16
As expected, Henry Villard had watered the stock the smaller
Thomson-Houston Company bring par with that EGE
before the consolidation.
The formation General Electric 1892 did not bring
an end the R&D alternating currents the lab, where
. The press saw the "trust" versus the lone
inventor, with the latter "frozen out" the industry had
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created. The search for the cheap, high
performance electric lamp did not die 1892 but went with
more financial support than ever
