Taking a page from peer-to-peer technologies popularised by Napster, these companies are looking at the ordinary desktop computer as a stand-in to perform some of the same duties now managed by massive banks of Web servers.
Despite peer-to-peer's proven success in Napster with content distribution, however, analysts are wary of security and reliability issues of what seems a fragile, unpredictable Net. "Clearly there's value in being able to cut costs," said Joel Yaffe, an analyst with the Giga Information Group, a market research firm. But desktop computers are "so unpredictable...It would put content publishers in a precarious position vis-a-vis their infrastructure."
The system could work like this: A person wants to download a song. System software checks to find the fastest online connection. If a PC in the same building has the song and is close, the software connects with that PC and downloads the song. But if no other PC is available or close, the software instead points to a server out on the public Internet.
Start-up Kontiki is backed by many of the same people who originally created and ran Internet browser software company Netscape Communications, including Netscape founder Marc Andreessen. Red Swoosh draws on the talents of the core group of programmers who created what was once one of the most successful file-swapping services on the Net.
Both declined to publicly comment or offer many details, as they are officially in "stealth" mode for a few more weeks.
The ideas behind the start-ups' strategy have evolved as threads of peer-to-peer technology and content delivery research have gradually merged.
Akamai Technologies, as well as other content distribution companies, have built their businesses on pushing Net content--whether it be regular Web pages, individual images, or streaming media--as physically close to as many people as possible. With servers scattered within many ISP networks, Web surfers can reach content faster--easing pressure on network bottlenecks that have traditionally slowed Web connections to a crawl.
At the same time, peer-to-peer software developers have been looking for better ways to allow PCs to talk to each other while keeping network traffic to a minimum.
One good example is Napster's work with universities. Many colleges banned the use of the service because it used up so much of the school's network. With Napster's help, some universities figured out ways to route songs so that students were instead downloading songs from people at the same university--keeping the traffic within the same network.
Not without problems
The ideas put forth by Kontiki and Red Swoosh are not without controversy, and have certainly drawn considerable skepticism in financial and established networking circles.
Bob Gilles, CEO of QuMatrix, which is applying a similar peer-to-peer distribution idea inside individual companies, says venture capitalists told him to forget about applying the idea on the Internet.
Forget "this Internet thing," he said potential funders told him as he described his original idea. "Why would everyone allow anyone to get on their hard drive?"
With funding from a consortium of private Saudi Arabian investors, Gilles' company is now focusing solely on the corporate internal network market, with a first trial project scheduled at Citibank.
Executives at Akamai, one of the leading companies in the content delivery market, also are skeptical about bringing individual personal computers into what need to be industrial-strength networks.
"Security and reliability concerns mean we need to have control of the infrastructure for the bulk of our services," said Kieran Taylor, director of product marketing at Akamai. That would make adding ordinary computers "a bit of a challenge."
The companies aiming in this direction are not inexperienced. The idea has already been endorsed by RealNetworks, which is building a rudimentary version of the networking model into its MusicNet music subscription service. That will let people download songs from other subscribers if those subscribers' connections are faster than a central server.
