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February 25, 2003
P2P collaboration
Was previously: blah, when I was testing Groove/Userland integration.
Peer-to-peer has been a controversial term almost since it was introduced to the world by Napster. As tens of millions of users learned they could freely share music, movies and software, those industries fought harder and harder against them in what appears to be a losing battle, with the businesses and organizations who own the networks and computers caught in the middle. Education and research organizations have been in the most uncomfortable position, trying to find a balance between enabling a promising new technology and discouraging improper and illegal activities.
There have been a few applications that have begun to demonstrate the power of peer-to-peer communications. Like Napster, these applications mirror the way people deal with each other as peers, or would like to, and make those interactions possible or more efficient. Groove Networks, the latest invention of Lotus Notes creator Ray Ozzie, enables individual users to collaborate the way Notes could only do if an organization supported its use. Groove integrates with other peer-to-peer collaboration tools such as IM, and uses a true peer-to-peer architecture instead of client-server like Notes. I don't know if Groove is going to be a huge success, but I think it's a good demonstration of the useful power of peer-to-peer technology.
Microsoft is poised to launch the next wave of interest in peer-to-peer. The Windows Peer-to-Peer Update and SDK enables developers to create and extend applications through peer-to-peer connectivity. Microsoft's first application built on this technology is Three Degrees, a group-oriented add-on for Messenger that enables shared music-listening (not music sharing, just listening), picture-viewing and a few other things that are more oriented to consumers than businesses. Microsoft is also studying how peer-to-peer applications perform on today's networks. But those functions always find applications for business users (not a year ago, IM was laughed at in the business environment, where today whole companies regularly use it to complement phones and email). It's not a stretch to imagine how Three Degrees fits into a business environment, and the synergy with Groove is too obvious to ignore.
It's exciting to finally have some tangible examples of how peer-to-peer is a viable and useful technology. With products like Groove and companies like Microsoft advocating and enabling peer-to-peer networking, it will be an exciting technology to watch develop.
Posted by pete at February 25, 2003 10:27 PM
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