Peer-to-Peer or Network Computing: Which is Best for Your Firm?

Peer-to-peer computing is catching on. A variety of companies have discovered that this technology helps them do business faster, cheaper, and better. Unlike client/server computing, peer-to-peer computing lets different groups of users collaborate without having to go through the bottleneck of a central corporate server. The technology can also break down large tasks into smaller assignments and distribute them across many different interconnected desktops so that many different computers can be directed toward the solution simultaneously. Peer-to-peer computing is especially useful for research and design collaboration work. Intel is using peer-to-peer technology to shave weeks off its schedule for chip design. An Intel chip designer in Oregon can, for example, run a computer processing job on company desktops in Israel when the workday there has ended. GlaxoSmithKline, the global pharmaceutical firm, started using peer-to-peer software from Groove Networks Inc. to help its researchers create a worldwide collaborative network with scientists from universities and biotechnology companies. GlaxoSmithKline works closely with these organizations in clinical studies and drug trials and must exchange many confidential documents and images with them. The companys first peer-to-peer task was to expedite a patent filing by linking a company lawyer in the United States with a company scientist in Britain and an outside intellectual property lawyer in London. First Union Bank is another peer-to-peer convert. The banks fixed-income derivatives trading group is using Data Synapse software to increase trading volume and conduct portfolio risk analysis continuously instead of waiting for its central computers to be freed up at the end of a trading day. Peer-to-peer computing with the Data Synapse software has reduced computing times for most assets from hours to minutes. Faster response times help First Union edge out its competitors, eventually leading to more profits. Radissons Edwardian Hotel chain in London took the opposite tack: It decided to scrap its servers and PCs at its 10 London hotels in favor of a single computer center and storage facility at Heathrow linked to thin clients in each of the hotels. The hotel chain will use a portal to give users a single point of entry to all applications, including human resources, financial systems, office tools, and training. The portal will tailor information to the needs of individual users so that they can use their time on the system more efficiently. Management plans to roll out the same infrastructure to new hotels planned for Manchester, Birmingham, and London. To set up a new hotel, the company needs to buy the computer, hook into Radissons private network, and add PCs with Web browser software. Because all hotels will use the same applications, there will be no need to install special hardware or software for each hotel. Radissons management believes this ease of administration will save money, because it can deliver all software tools and upgrades to 400 desktops centrally from the head office. Individual hotels will no longer need their own information systems staff.

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Compare the benefits that a commercial company would obtain from implementing "peer-to-peer" and "network computing". What managerial, organizational and technological factors must be evaluated to determine the adoption of "peer-to-peer" or "network computing"?