GXS Inc.
| Company type | Division |
|---|---|
| Industry | Business-to-business integration, Supply chain collaboration |
| Predecessor | General Electric Information Services (GEIS) |
| Founded | 1962 |
| Fate | Acquired by OpenText Corporation in 2013 |
| Headquarters | Gaithersburg, Maryland , United States |
Area served | Global |
| Products | GXS Trading Grid |
| Owner | OpenText Corporation |
GXS (also known as OpenText GXS) operates as a division of OpenText Corporation, with its headquarters situated in Gaithersburg, Maryland, United States. In 2011, the GXS Trading Grid facilitated the processing of over twelve billion transactions. Since 2004, the company has allocated upwards of $250 million to enhance the Trading Grid infrastructure. By March 16, 2012, the platform connected more than 550,000 enterprises, with an influx exceeding 2,000 new companies each month.
As of December 31, 2011, GXS generated 58.5% of its revenue from the U.S. market, while the remaining 41.5% originated from international operations managed through regional offices located in Hong Kong, London, São Paulo, and Tokyo.
On November 5, 2013, OpenText Corporation publicly declared its acquisition of GXS.
Mark III
The foundation of GXS can be traced back to the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System initiated in 1962, a collaborative effort between Dartmouth College and General Electric (GE). Following this, GE established the Information Services Department (ISD) after creating the Information Processing Centers Business in 1966. As mainframe technology progressed, GE replaced dedicated communication computers with a multi-tier network system, renaming it Mark II.
In 1970, GE ceased its computer manufacturing operations but maintained its time-sharing services under the Information Services Business Division (ISBD). By 1973, mainframe facilities were centralized near Cleveland, Ohio, upgrading to Honeywell 6000-series mainframes.
GE ISBD developed the Foreground/Background Interface (FBI) that connected Mark II to GE’s batch operating system GCOS, enabling batch job submissions and output retrieval. This integrated system was designated Mark III in 1972.
By 1975, GE introduced clustered mainframes linked through proprietary hardware called "Scratch Pad," allowing up to six mainframes to share file systems and achieve availability exceeding 99.99%. The network grew to encompass three Supercenters located in Ohio, Maryland, and The Netherlands by the late 1970s, facilitating load balancing and disaster recovery capabilities.
A partnership with Honeywell led to the creation of GE Information Services Company (GEISCO) in 1979; GE acquired full ownership by 1982 and renamed it General Electric Information Services (GEIS).
By 1985, GEIS broadened its offerings to include programming languages such as Fortran 77 and C but faced challenges due to personal computers diminishing demand for time-sharing services. Consequently, it pivoted toward network-based solutions supporting global applications including sales reporting, banking transfers, customer service operations, and eventually e-mail.
The company’s pricing structure combined proprietary Computer Resource Units (CRU), Terminal Connect Hours (TCH), and Kilo-Characters (KC), which were adjusted according to hardware changes to maintain pricing stability for clients. Later efforts introduced transaction-based pricing models but with limited market acceptance.
GEnie
In October 1985, GEIS launched GEnie, an online service comparable to CompuServe. It gained considerable traction through the early 1990s and became a notable platform for online gaming. However, GEnie’s expansion was hindered by its original business model—designed primarily to monetize surplus computer and network capacity—which caused management reluctance toward investing in additional mainframe resources despite growing user demand. This constrained both growth and innovation.
With the advent of the Internet era, GEIS's delayed rollout of email services in 1993, sluggish Mark III network performance, lack of an internet portal presence, and competition from ISPs such as CompuServe and AOL contributed to GEnie’s decline. The service was ultimately terminated at the close of 1999, shortly followed by the discontinuation of Mark III and GEIS itself.
GXS
In the year 2000, General Electric Information Services transformed its identity to GXS (Global Exchange Services). By June 2002, the venture capital firm Francisco Partners purchased GXS from General Electric, managing it as an independent entity while GE maintained a minority ownership.
GXS Trading Grid was honored with the "SaaS Product of the Year" award by Techworld in 2011. On November 5, 2013, OpenText, a Canadian software company, announced its intention to acquire GXS. The transaction finalized in January 2014, after which GXS was rebranded as OpenText GXS (NASDAQ: OTEX; TSX: OTC), broadening OpenText’s presence in cloud-based B2B integration solutions.
Acquisitions and partnerships
In 2003, GXS expanded by acquiring Celarix, a provider specializing in supply-chain optimization software and services, followed by the purchase of HAHT Commerce in 2004.
The following year, in 2005, GXS secured the EDI and Business Exchange Services divisions from IBM Corporation.
May 2006 marked a collaboration between Microsoft and GXS to integrate Microsoft technologies with the GXS Trading Grid, endorsing it as the preferred network for Microsoft BizTalk Server. That same year, GXS acquired UDEX, a company focused on product data quality solutions.
On June 4, 2007, Verizon began marketing GXS Trading Grid services under the names Custom Supply Chain Managed Services and Invoice Automation Service.
In 2008, Accenture entered into a global alliance with GXS to provide Trading Grid services such as Active Orders and Active Inventory Management to its manufacturing clientele.
On January 5, 2009, GXS took over Interchange, a prominent Brazilian e-commerce service provider previously owned by Banco Real, Citibank Brazil, EDS (an HP subsidiary), and Itaú Unibanco.
The merger between GXS and Inovis was completed on June 3, 2010, enhancing their combined B2B and e-commerce capabilities.
On March 29, 2011, GXS acquired RollStream, a SaaS firm that strengthened its social supply chain offerings.
Operations
GXS provides business-to-business integration along with on-demand supply chain collaboration through its cloud-based platform known as the GXS Trading Grid. Introduced in 2004 via a partnership with webMethods, this platform enables real-time data interchange between companies regardless of differing standards, languages, or geographic locations.