Computer scientist and entrepreneur Gene Kan draws lessons from the history of P2P to warn what often happens when people get overly excited about new technologies.
All it took was a bunch of swiped songs before nifty names such as Napster and MP3 popped up. Then the phrase peer-to-peer (P2P) became part of our lexicon and vendors jumped on the bandwagon and built a raft of so-called P2P products. Hi tech derivatives, trend predictions and P2P philosophy are now in full force. What's hype and what's real?
The potential of P2P seems to be immense - but like most new ideas it's potentially a double-edged sword, and a lot of confusion surrounds it.
Reuters is considering peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing to deliver content and services. It believes it has spotted a way to make cost savings from this emerging new architecture, popularised by the Napster music-sharing service.
True believers see P2P applications starting to trickle through corporate networks and the Internet in a stealthy, grassroots revolution that will make network computing more efficient, more interactive, more fun - in short, better.
History of British PCs
The cash-strapped UK National Museum of Computing is home to an exhibition of the evolution of British PCs.… Watch it now
Driving Business Growth Through Enterprise IT Management
High availability computing with reliable blade technology
Telstra's BT coat doesn't fit
Australian security: the lucky country 
Storage infrastructure on the tender track
Driving Business Growth Through Enterprise IT Management
Dig deeper by clicking here »
Achieve continuous availability with high performance NonStop blade technology
Security superguide
When chief information officers and other technology managers talk about their priorities, security is always high on the list.
Click here for more.
Superguide: Printers -- all you need to know
Looking to buy a printer? Our superguide rates the latest printers and shines a light into the industry.
Click here for more.
Storage and server superguide
Over the last decade the art of maintaining the datacentre of a large organisation has evolved into an art form.
Click here for more.
