Northern Light Group
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| Formerly | Northern Light Technology, LLC |
|---|---|
| Company type | Private |
| Industry | Technology |
| Founded | 1996 |
| Headquarters | Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA |
| Products | Web search (early) Enterprise search Research portals |
| Brands | SinglePoint |
Number of employees | 55+ |
| Website | northernlight |
Northern Light Group, LLC is an American technology company that specializes in enterprise search technology, text analytics solutions and research engines that combine traditional search engine functions with access to non-web based publications.[1] The company provides custom, hosted turnkey solutions for its clients using the software as a service (SAS) delivery model.
Northern Light markets its research portals under the trade name SinglePoint. Typical applications for SinglePoint research portals are in market research, competitive intelligence, product management, product development, and technologic research. Northern Light's client base consists of global companies that typically have more than $10 billion in annual sales. Companies that have stated publicly that they use SinglePoint research portals from Northern Light include HP, Verizon, Symantec, SAP, and Cisco.[citation needed]
Northern Light has been selected for six years in a row (as of 2009) as one of the "100 Companies That Matter In Knowledge Management" by KMWorld magazine.[2]
According to the industry trade magazine Information Today, Northern Light is innovating the automated analysis and extraction of meaning from large repositories of market intelligence documents.[3]
History
The company is named after the clipper ship Northern Light, which held the speed record for the San Francisco to Boston voyage for nearly 150 years.[4]
From its founding in 1996 until January 2002, Northern Light operated a Web search engine for public use, originally on the domain nlsearch.com. It was regarded at the time as innovative in provision of search based on classification and inclusion of both public and proprietary information resources.[5][6] During this time period, Northern Light also developed private custom search engines for large corporate clients marketed under the trade name SinglePoint.
In 2002, after immediate public backlash against the sudden monetization of their formerly public search engine, Northern Light discontinued it. With their market value in tatters, they were easily acquired by Divine, Inc., an enterprise software company.[7] In 2003, an employee group bought the company from its parent and it is still employee-owned as of 2010 and SinglePoint is its main product line.
In 2000, the company was the title sponsor for the IndyCar Series.[8]
References
- ^ "Guiding Light". CIO Enterprise. Framingham, MA: CIO Communications, Inc. November 15, 1999. p. 16. ISSN 0894-9301.
- ^ KMWorld.com article
- ^ Information Today: Northern Light Launches MI Analyst (May 7, 2007)
- ^ northernlight.com: History
- ^ O'Leary, Mick (1 February 2007). "Northern Light: better the second time around?". Information Today.[dead link]
- ^ Rosenberg, Ronald (30 June 1999). "Godsend -- and a threat Northern Light gets praise from users, criticism from publishers threatened by research-engine service". Boston Globe – via HighBeam Research (subscription required) . Archived from the original on 9 April 2016. Retrieved 13 July 2013.
- ^ Callaghan, Dennis (February 18, 2003). "Divine Reviewing Options; Bankruptcy May Loom". eWeek. TechnologyAdvice.
- ^ Schoettle, Anthony (23 October 2000). "IRL in groove with Northern Light". Indianapolis Business Journal – via HighBeam Research (subscription required) . Archived from the original on 13 April 2016. Retrieved 13 July 2013.