GE met with success in selling computer remote timesharing services provided via distributed centers, on the Mark I Time-Sharing System and formed the Information Processing Centers Business (IPCB) in 1966 renamed six months later as the Information Services Department (ISD).

They offered pre-written business, mathematics and engineering applications in libraries (as well as a few games) which could be run by any subscriber as well as a platform for software development in BASIC, Algol and Fortran IV.

Another proprietary GE innovation in 1975 was to run the mainframes in single-processor "clusters", enabled by a specialized and custom hardware box (the "Scratch Pad" (SPAD)) that connected the systems.

As the GE network grew, the Mark III mainframes were eventually located in three processing centers called Supercenters.

All were completely networked and equally accessible from anywhere in the world, allowing GE to move load from one center to another and transmit off-site backups for disaster recovery purposes.

Without the need for a separate legal entity for shared-ownership, eventually GEISCO quietly became just General Electric Information Services (GEIS).

GEIS refocused on "Network-Based Services" where the world-wide availability of homogenous access to a customer's applications and data could be leveraged to advantage.

Services like sales-force reporting, international banking and transfers, customer support and eventually e-mail (delayed by GE's aversion to running afoul of international common-carrier laws) all required a highly reliable worldwide network and GEIS had the biggest and the best.

Since the outset, GEIS services were always priced as a combination of proprietary Computer Resource Units (CRU), Terminal Connect Hours (TCH) and Kilo-Characters (KC).

The CRU was a highly proprietary formula which took in variables such as the CPU time, memory size and file system input-output operations performed in a program run.

It was carefully adjusted whenever new hardware (or sometimes operating system software) was deployed so that test programs generated the same CRU numbers over many years, giving customers stability.

In June 2002, GXS was acquired by venture capital firm Francisco Partners from General Electric (GE).

GXS acquired Interchange from Banco Real, Citibank Brazil, EDS, an HP company, and Itaú Unibanco.

[17] The Trading Grid enables the real-time flow of information between businesses regardless of standards preferences, spoken language or geographic location.