Northern Light Group Explained

Northern Light Group, LLC
Former Names:Northern Light Technology, LLC
Type:Private
Company Slogan:Unknown
Foundation:1996
Location:Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Industry:Technology
Products:Web search (early)
Enterprise search
Research portals
Brands:SinglePoint
Num Employees:55+

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 (SaaS) 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 R&D. Northern Light's client base consists of global companies that typically have more than $10 billion in annual sales.

Northern Light has been selected for more than ten years in a row (as of 2023) as one of the "100 Companies That Matter In Knowledge Management" by KMWorld magazine and as "50 Companies that Matter in AI" in 2023.[2]

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.[3]

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.[4] [5] During this time period, Northern Light also developed private custom search engines for large corporate clients marketed under the trade name SinglePoint.

In 2002, Northern Light was acquired by Divine, Inc., an enterprise software company. Divine made 28 acquisitions, and Northern Light was the 17th. In 2003, an employee group bought the company from its parent and it is still employee-owned as of 2023 and SinglePoint is its main product line. According to the company's website, as of 2023 Northern Light has 250,000 users of its SinglePoint platform at its corporate clients.

Notes and References

  1. November 15, 1999. Guiding Light. 16. CIO Enterprise. Framingham, MA. CIO Communications, Inc.. 0894-9301.
  2. https://northernlight.com/kmworld-names-northern-light-to-its-ai50
  3. http://northernlight.com/history.html northernlight.com: History
  4. News: Northern Light: better the second time around?. O'Leary. Mick. 1 February 2007. Information Today .
  5. News: Godsend -- and a threat Northern Light gets praise from users, criticism from publishers threatened by research-engine service. https://web.archive.org/web/20160409232606/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8551040.html. dead. 9 April 2016. Rosenberg. Ronald. 30 June 1999. Boston Globe . 13 July 2013.