Northgate Information Solutions

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Northgate Information Solutions is a UK company that produces HR and payroll applications.

[edit] History

1969 - Founded as CMC, Computer Machinery Company. They were originally distributors and subsequently manufacturers of Key to Disk computer systems made by the US based Computer Machinery Corporation. The CMC Key to Disk systems were used by major companies and government departments for data capture (hence the name).

1976 - CMC developed a bit-slice based intelligent terminal - the P99- which it used both as a front end processor to the Key to Disk systems and as a terminal in its own right. It then evolved the CMC P99 into the P141 - a true front end processor which it used to implement a new Data Capture system launched as SOVEREIGN. This was successfully used in manufacturing companies such as Rolls Royce, British Steel and various government departments including providing data capture for the DHSS at Newcastle upon Tyne. It later evolved into the M8000 system based on Intel processor based systems.

1981 - Purchased by Microdata, a California based computer company, whose Reality product CMC was also distributing.

The REALITY name was given to Microdata's computer system and the operating system - a version of the Pick operating system. At the time, Microdata owned rights to the Pick Operating system in parallel with Dick Pick - who had developed it with Microdata.

CMC Leasing Limited (the official trading name) then changed its name to Microdata UK limited, aka MUK. The company then started UK manufacture of the Reality range of computer systems in its manufacturing factory in Maxted Road, Hemel Hempstead.

1983 - Microdata was purchased by McDonnell Douglas Corporation.

1984 - Company was re-branded as MDIS, McDonnell Douglas Information Systems Limited.

The company introduced the M9000 (aka Sequoia in US) which offered dynamic performance using soft loaded firmware and processor performance keys using the same hardware components to minimise sparing and maximise cost effectiveness. (although 1Mb memory sold for 25,000 GBP in those days)

A new Manufacturing and Office complex was built in Boundary Way, Hemel Hempstead. Work starts virtually as soon as the building is open to double its size, so they became known as known as 'Phase 1 and 2' internally but 'Maylands Park' externally.

The company then produced the UK designed Spirit processor which was launched as a lower end REALITY product as the M6000. Later the company developed the Series 19 (aka Pegasus) successor to the Sequoia using a world-wide development team spanning the two engineering facilities in Hemel Hempstead, UK and Irvine, California.

1989 – Second new building was completed at Boundary Way to accommodate the thousand staff then at the head office location. At the time, the company was thought to have one of the largest company car fleets in the UK (Hertz).

1992 – The last year MDIS made a computer system from scratch meant the end of UK manufacturing for the company. It continued its hardware and systems integration work at Maylands Park North.

It could do this because it had produced RealityX - an open platform REALITY environment (internally known for a time as CORA). This was the result of several years of development taking the REALITY Operating System (aka ROS) and re-engineering into a UNIX application capable of running on non-MDIS computers. RealityX provided not only end user/application compatibility but also provided it at the developer assembler level. The same source code was used for RealityX and the original REALITY implementations.

RealityX allowed the REALITY Operating Environment and applications developed for REALITY to continue to be sold and maintained using best of breed open systems under the SeriesX name.

Initially MDIS used UNIX systems from Encore Computer, then from Motorola Computer Systems and Data General - all using M88k RISC processors and UNIX System V. Later they moved to run on Solaris-based systems from Sun Microsystems. The open approach eventually led to a Microsoft Windows platform in 1995 and continued feature enhancements that are still being developed as of 2007.

As a corollary to this operating environment, MDIS acquires and develops its PROIV fourth generation language (4GL), which was used worldwide by companies including Fujitsu. A variant was implemented on REALITY called ALL (Application Language Liberator).

1993 - A management buyout. At this time, and with the end of the cold war, the parent company McDonnell Douglas was realising that they didn’t have another Microsoft on their hands and were susceptible to a cash offer. 29 Senior Managers and Directors of the company, under the leadership of Jerry Causley CEO, and through Barings Bank, purchase the company from McDonnell Douglas.

1994 - Floatation on the London Stock Exchange under the MDIS banner. Shares were sold, at the floatation, for 260 pence each. Unfortunately within two months the shares were worth less than one pound.

Through the latter part of the 1990s, most of the original directors and senior managers leave the company, to be replaced by a new management group. The new CEO, John Klien, takes the reins after the company issues yet another profit warning to the stock exchange.

Its key application products - Human Resources - were re-implemented in PRO-IV to improve product availability and functionality.

1998 - The second building, known as Maylands Park South, sold to 3Com. This complex had accommodated about 600 staff, who were either re-located to the other Maylands Park building or, with others in the group, made redundant.

1999 – Chris Stone was appointed as a new CEO . At this time the company was losing about £100m per year and several years of downsizing and rationalisation followed. The company re-focused on its core markets, Local Government and Public Sector (Police, Fire and Ambulance Services) and application products, (Payroll, Pensions and HR systems). Services such as Hardware Maintenance and Managed Services are also offered.

2000 – In order to re-brand the company, and shed the old loss making image, the company changes its name to Northgate Information Solutions, aka NIS. This was actually the name of a small software house which the old MDIS company purchased years earlier.

2001 – Through 're-focusing', and the loss of about two thirds of the original MDIS staff, the business finally returns to profit. Through the sale of the Health business unit, the company raises capital for acquisitions.

At the company head office, now located in the original phase 1 and 2 three storey building, consolidate onto two floors.

2002 – Northgate acquire Prolog, payroll outsourcing & solutions

2003 – To expand core business and to gain access to a wider range of clients, the company acquire CaraPeople, (payroll outsourcing), blue8, (location and citizen centric IT systems for emergency services), Hays CSG, (data management information systems (police) and consulting), PWA Group, (HR applications).

2004 – From this point, the company continues its rapid growth. No longer a company stuck in the glory days of its history, struggling to re-shape to the changing business needs of its markets, it aggressively acquires business after business. In a significant move in focussing on application-led business, it acquires Rebus - previously Peterborough Software - one of its main competitors (HR Group, HR and payroll solutions) and CIM Systems, (communication technologies for control room environments). As a result of its larger capitalisation, it became listed on the London Stock Exchange FTSE 250 Index.

2005 - Acquisition of Sx3, and MVM Holdings Limited. This may have been a step too far. A number of staff felt that they are now working for Sx3, due to the integration of their senior managers.

Sunday December 11 2005 – a major explosion and fire at the Buncefield oil depot immediately adjacent to the NIS building, effectively destroys the Hemel Hempstead Head office complex. Fortunately the two managed services staff manning the Data Centre escaped unharmed. Other Hemel Hempstead based staff were told to report to offices in Oxford and Peterborough the following week. The share price dips on the first trading day afterwards, but recovers by lunchtime. The company moves its Managed Services customer system backups to run on systems at back up facilities. (This included a full managed network for hospitals in East Anglia.)

October 2006 - Share price fluctuates, company announces that they are subject to an unsolicited takeover approach.[1] It has since been announced that this has amounted to nothing.

June 2007 - Northgate buys Arinso

December 2007 - Kohlberg Kravis Roberts agrees to buy the company for £593 million.^[1]

March 2008 - Northgate Information Systems plc is de-listed from the London Stock Exchange following completion of the purchase by KKR.^[2]

April 2008 - Northgate achieved a position of forty-seventh out of one hundred in ‘Britain’s Top Employer 2008’ ^[3]

[edit] Notes:

Prior to 1987 information shown in

[edit] References

1. ^ KKR to buy Northgate for £593m. Guardian Unlimited. Retrieved on 2008-01-13.
2. ^ Northgate Information Solutions Acquired by KKR. Reuters Business Wire. Retrieved on 2008-04-28.
3. ^ Top Employer 2008.