By 2002, more than half of global Internet users will regularly sign on to at least two P2P Internet applications. Gartner Group Dec 2000 P2P lets multiple parties interact directly. Although P2P was around long before Napster creator Shawn Fanning thought it d be a cool way to find and share music files over the Internet, it was used mostly by academia for serious number crunching. Forrester Research defines P2P as a distributed computing architecture that allows client systems to communicate directly with other clients, with or without a single administrative server to coordinate and manage interactions between peers. This P2P platform uses the computers of more than two million volunteers to perform a sensitive search for radio signals from extraterrestrial civilisations.
Companies often have to hire knowledge managers to crack the whip and manage the information.
By connecting your colleagues and business partners and their internal systems and environments, P2P allows powerful, cost-efficient collaboration. CareScience is a medical information company that has created a P2P platform to securely exchange patient information within a hospital and affiliated laboratories, treatment units and doctors. Additional applications could include pharmacies, suppliers and insurers. Not all businesses will use P2P in all its forms, but most will see areas where it can save money and time while improving processes and providing new ways of doing business. B2B eCommerce is a search for a buyer or a seller.