Peer-to-peer transfer technology will be widely used by businesses within the next three years, according to independent think-tank Organisation and Technology Research (OTR).

The group has pinpointed the increasing adoption of the technology in a report published last week identifying IT trends that will have an impact over the next few years.

OTR believes peer-to-peer tools will move from the consumer sector and into the corporate arena. It predicts that the tools will be used to redistribute files and data on a network, rather than individual systems downloading direct from central servers.

David Rance, a consultant with OTR, says peer-to-peer has risen as a consumer technology, in forms such as BitTorrent and Kazaa, and businesses are now beginning to identify its potential benefits.

‘Peer-to-peer began as a way to download music, but now companies are starting to realise they can use it to download business files quicker,’ he said. ‘The driving factor is the sheer volume of data and the distribution of the various feeds. People want access to more and different streams of information, and the streams themselves are getting big.’

Distribution of software will be one of the main uses of peer-to-peer, says Rance.

‘When the task is: “I need to get this big bit of software out to thousands of machines in my company or to all of my customers”, this is the technique you need, otherwise your own servers would melt down under the pressure,’ he said.

Ovum peer-to-peer technology analyst Jonathan Arber says using the technology for large-scale distribution of data or computer programs makes sense.

‘There is no reason why it couldn’t be used in an enterprise environment,’ he said.

‘If you are a software designer working in Poland, for example, and you need to get that software to various different people in Washington DC, then you could definitely make use of peer-to-peer,’ he said.

‘But I think it very much depends on what your purpose would be in using peer-to-peer. It is not something that is necessarily going to be applicable to all organisations, because a lot of the time it is still more efficient to send round emails with file attachments.’

Further Reading:

• P2P media services raise hackles
• System helps university stop P2P downloads
• Peer-to-peer mobile trial in Africa

OTR predictions

Problems with handhelds

As PDAs and smartphones become capable of more functions, existing display technologies will not be able to keep up.

Business Intelligence

With data storage needs increasing, new systems will have the capacity to investigate email, blogs and RSS feeds.

Portable keyboards

Handheld take-up will be driven by the development of folding keyboards that can be easily carried around with a PDA.