As the lighting industry has realigned itself to meet the new world order of solid-state lighting, the last thing anyone expected was for legacy companies such as Philips, Osram, and GE to reconsider their lighting businesses completely. Through the process of mergers and acquisitions, which had been rigorously playing out during the 2000s, it seemed as if the industry was heading toward a makeup of a few dominant publicly traded lighting conglomerates and a few independently owned, small and mid-sized lighting businesses. The surprise that caught many off guard was when Osram and Philips began divesting their lighting businesses in 2013. GE Lighting danced around the issue, stating it was “transforming” its lighting business, until it finally announced in fall 2015 that it was launching Current, powered by GE, an “energy company that integrates GE’s LED, Solar, Energy Storage and Electric Vehicle businesses.” For the lighting community as a whole, such a dramatic recasting of players once mainstays of the pre-LED era was difficult to imagine.
Explore all 30 Moments in Lighting from our 30th Anniversary Issue here.
