Northern Light Group, LLC is an American technology company specializing in

enterprise search Enterprise search is the practice of making content from multiple enterprise-type sources, such as databases and intranets, searchable to a defined audience. "Enterprise search" is used to describe the software of search information within an ente ...

technology,

text analytics Text mining, also referred to as ''text data mining'', similar to text analytics, is the process of deriving high-quality information from text. It involves "the discovery by computer of new, previously unknown information, by automatically extra ...

solutions and research engines that combine traditional search engine functions with access to non-web based

publications To publish is to make content available to the general public.Berne Conv ...

. The company provides custom, hosted

turnkey A turnkey, a turnkey project, or a turnkey operation (also spelled turn-key) is a type of project that is constructed so that it can be sold to any buyer as a completed product. This is contrasted with build to order, where the constructor builds ...

solutions for its clients using the

software as a service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is con ...

(SaaS) delivery model. Northern Light markets its strategic research portals under the trade name SinglePoint. Typical applications for SinglePoint strategic research portals are in

market research Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets and customers: know about them, starting with who they are. It is an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining competitiveness. Mar ...

competitive intelligence Competitive intelligence (CI) is the process and forward-looking practices used in producing knowledge about the competitive environment to improve organizational performance. It involves the systematic collection and analysis of information from ...

product management Product management is the business process of planning, developing, launching, and managing a product or service. It includes the entire lifecycle of a product, from ideation to development to go to market. Product managers are responsible for ...

product development In business and engineering, new product development (NPD) covers the complete process of bringing a new product to market, renewing an existing product or introducing a product in a new market. A central aspect of NPD is product design, along w ...

, and technology 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. 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. According to the industry trade magazine ''

Information Today Information Today, Inc., is an American publishing company. It publishes Internet and technology magazines, newsletters, books, directories and online products. Information Today was previously known as Learned Information, Inc. Learned Informa ...

'', Northern Light is innovating the automated analysis and extraction of meaning from large repositories of

market intelligence Market intelligence (MI) is gathering and analyzing information relevant to a company's market - trends, competitor and customer (existing, lost and targeted) monitoring. It is a subtype of competitive intelligence (CI), which is data and info ...

documents.

History

The company is named after the

clipper ship A clipper was a type of mid-19th-century merchant sailing vessel, designed for speed. Clippers were generally narrow for their length, small by later 19th century standards, could carry limited bulk freight, and had a large total sail area. "Cl ...

'' Northern Light'', which held the speed record for the

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

voyage for nearly 150 years. From its founding in 1996 until January 2002, Northern Light operated a

Web search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...

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. 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. 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 The IndyCar Series, currently known as the NTT IndyCar Series under sponsorship, is the highest class of regional North American open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars in the United States, which has been conducted under the auspices o ...

References

{{Web search engines Internet search engines Companies based in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Search engines A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...