2001 P2P Networking Overview: Ten Key Conclusions

Clearly, the potential for P2P networking goes far beyond Napster. We at O'Reilly Research have been at the forefront of the peer-to-peer revolution since the beginning. And we're rounding out our P2P offerings with a comprehensive research report on the state of the P2P industry, the 2001 P2P Networking Overview, written by four leading P2P industry analysts explaining the who, what, how, and why of P2P.

Are you an IT manager concerned about how P2P technologies will affect you? An investor wanting to make a more informed decision about a P2P opportunity? An executive or a P2P company decision-maker trying to understand the market and your place in the market? If you've answered "yes" to any of these questions, O'Reilly's 2001 P2P Networking Overview is for you. Here are the report's ten key conclusions.

Key Conclusions

1. P2P is a mindset, not a technology or an industry.

2. To fully grasp P2P, you must think in terms of "PIE": Presence, Identity, and Edge. These factors can be leveraged to turn an application into a decentralized networking platform.

3. P2P architectures offer powerful approaches for solving the seemingly intractable problems of the Web, such as bandwidth cost, denial-of-service attacks, and cost of maintaining robust 24/7 systems.

4. P2P is not a binary choice between centralization and decentralization but presents an enormous opportunity for creating a more efficient and robust Internet.

5. The future of consumer file-sharing services lies with licensed, subscription-based services. Hanging in the wings, fully decentralized services have a better chance of surviving legal attacks than do centrally managed services like Napster.

6. P2P content delivery networks have a tough road ahead: They must deliver solutions that are lower in cost and comparable in service to classic content delivery networks like Akamai.

7. Due to early adoption in the life sciences and financial services industries, distributed computation has the greatest short-term revenue potential in the P2P space.

8. Developments in both P2P and IM (instant messaging) point to the emergence of PIE. In a PIE-enabled network, resources at the Center migrate to the Edge; anonymous users gain Identity; and transient connectivity yields to Presence.

9. P2P creates the most significant challenges to the traditionally centralized IT departments, and to the current "intranet plus firewall" networking model of enterprise security and control.

10. Only two or three large providers of P2P groupware will survive; many of the current entrants will be acquired by larger players or exit the space.

The O'Reilly Peer-to-Peer and Web Services Conference, November 5-8 in Washington, D.C., will gather leaders forging P2P as a technology and a business opportunity.

About O'Reilly Research

O'Reilly has become famous for providing no-nonsense, in-depth information and insights about important technologies, watching what leading-edge developers are doing and noting signs that show when their work is about to cross the chasm and hit the mainstream. O'Reilly provides the information that builds that bridge.

At O'Reilly Research, we combine our extensive experience in new and emerging technologies with insider connections to the development community. We gather industry experts to provide their insights into these emerging technologies, then augment these insights with our exclusive techniques for condensing, summarizing, and forecasting trends in software development.

O'Reilly & Associates will soon release (October 2001) the 2001 P2P Networking Overview.

• You can also look at the Full Description of the report.

• For more information, or to order the book, click here.