Why the surprise about Nuclear?

I continue to be amazed that GE seems to be continually surprised about its ability to be a major player in the Nuclear arena. The headline in the August 26, 2010 Wall Street Journal was "Laggard GE Makes Nuclear Push". The article said that GE was able to get only one order while Westinghouse Toshiba received 8 and others got seven others. It also said that GE was disappointed that Obama hasn't help GE get more orders and provide funding.

This surprises me since it was always clear that GE had backed the less popular BWR and the market preferred the PWR. This is what I wrote in my book: The Secret To GE's Success three years ago: " Recall that, in the heyday of nuclear power, GE elected to back the BWR and not the PWR reactors. Over 75% of the installed nuclear units are PWR, and in many emerging markets like China, PWR dominate.

In January, 2006, British Nuclear Fuels--the owner of what was left of Westinghouse, including nuclear assets--decided to put it up for sale. GE allied with Hitachi made a bid. The two other bidders were both Japanese companies: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Toshiba. Toshiba bid $ 5.4 billion and acquired Westinghouse. GE believed the bid was too high but by failing to match Toshiba's price, it missed the opportunity to get access to the PWR technology and a large installed base, as well as the possibly losing the Chinese market. However, it should be noted that they have a relationship with Hitachi, who has been a PWR supplier. This may be one of the reasons that GE decided not to increase its bid for Westinghouse and it plans to use the combination of their own BWR and Hitachi's PWR to capture a significant share of Chinese opportunity"

I guess I was wrong about the combination of BWR and PWR since the article pointed out the GE is still focused on "a new improved" BWR, which I still think is a losing strategy.

This situation illustrates that GE may still be doing too much "imagination planning and not the proven, critical strategic thinking and decision making that made the company strong.

Bill Rothschild...