Peer to peer network - genesis, evolution and business application

Abstract

Peer to Peer networking is defined as a network where the individual users of the network (referred to as ‘peers’) act as equals and combine the roles of both client and server. The unique characteristic of such a network is in the absence of any centralized server or router. Enterprise 2.0, which is defined as the use of free-form social software within a corporate setting is a form of peer-to-peer network. The main components of Enterprise 2.0 are captured by the acronym SLATES which stands for Search, Linking, Authoring, Tags, Extensions and Signals. Some of the example of Enterprise 2.0 tools are blogs, wikis, community networks (like orkut etc.), file sharing, photo/music and video sharing (for eg. Youtube.com) etc. The main objective of the study was to evaluate the need and effectiveness of these tools within IT companies. Secondary research was conducted to understand the different tools and technologies related to Enterprise 2.0. Primary research was subsequently taken up by conducting in-depth interviews for 31 respondents spread across 6 IT companies. Through these user interviews, we captured the different needs and characteristics of an ideal communication and collaborative network environment within an IT Organization. Frequency Analysis was then performed to find out which of these needs were satisfied/catered to by the existing Enterprise 2.0 technologies. After elaborate quantitative and qualitative analysis, it was found out that the primary mode of formal communication was email and the primary informal communication/enterprise 2.0 tool used in these companies were LAN Messengers (which allows file sharing facilities).Through statistical analysis, we tested the hypotheses of the applicability of different enterprise 2.0 tools and found out that most of the employees feel the need and establishment of tools like blogs, wikis, file-sharing, community networks etc within their companies. All of them favored that these tools should emerge over time through its usage rather than be pushed or incentivized by the top management. Other tools like photo, music and video sharing (similar to youtube.com) were not desired to be present within the corporate environment since it would lead to distraction from work. Unmet needs were also captured through the research study and we found out that the employees feel the need for advanced web tools which would help them in creating better content categorization, pattern matching to other similar resources and information about new updates in different sites. Websites like flickr.com, deli.ico.us, technorati.com, stumbleupon.com, RSS feeds etc which more or less use these advanced technologies can be modified (as per the organization’s requirement) and used in these companies to satisfy these unmet needs. Finally, it is vital for the top management to understand the basic principle of the enterprise 2.0 technologies that they should be allowed to emerge rather than be forced to be able to succeed in meeting its goals and objectives. The onus is on the decision makers in these companies to create and nurture an environment of non-interference, freedom, choice and flexibility so as to facilitate the employees to derive maximum use and benefit from these resources.