Peer-to-Peer Goes Corporate - WSJ.com

Interesting WSJ snapshot 

Peer-to-peer technology -- heavily criticized by some for helping illegal music downloading through services like the original Napster and Kazaa -- is coming in from the cold. Companies such as GM, Coca-Cola Co. and videogame publisher Tulga Games Inc. are now using the technology to transmit large chunks of data like video files or software updates, to employees and customers.

The technology, also known as P2P, typically offers an inexpensive answer to the galloping demands that distribution of video, software and Internet telephony are placing on corporate computer networks. Instead of downloading a file from a centralized server, peer-to-peer technology arranges direct connections between PCs, thereby creating a network where files are distributed from one PC to another in the network.

Source: Peer-to-Peer Goes Corporate - WSJ.com