Attention:
This page is based on the O'Reilly categorizing scheme, which can be found at http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/q/p2p_category. Companies included are those in the peer-to-peer sphere that we have found and consider to have an interesting impact on peer-to-peer technology


3Path
(www.3path.com)

Distributed Computing
Type: Private
CEO: Brian Smiga
Place: New York, NY

3Path is the Priority Communication Network that provides a direct, private line of communication to customers. With 3Path you can:

Applied Meta (www.appliedmeta.com)

Distributed Computing
Type: Private
Founded: 1998
Place: Charlottesville, VA

Applied MetaComputing, the premier provider of Grid Operating Systems, gives its customers the ability to harness the power of networked resources easily and inexpensively.
LEGION, their flagship product, transcends traditional computing boundaries. LEGION delivers results and provides unique solutions that empower people, reduce costs, and generate profits and value for customers, partners and shareholders.
Applied MetaComputing is bringing to the market 6 years of advanced research and development work conducted in the Computer Science department at the University of Virginia. Originally designed and built for the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of Energy (DOE), UVa's product (code named LEGION) was conceived as a product that would enable the high-speed LAN and LAN networks of the future to achieve new levels of computing performance through resource collaboration. In addition to the DoD, and DOE, LEGION is in use at research facilities around the globe. From Harvard Medical School, to the Naval Research Laboratory, to NASA's Ames Research Center, LEGION technology is helping users realize and capitalize on the full power of their networked resources.

CareScience (www.carescience.com)

File-Sharing
CEO: David J. Brailer, MD, Ph.D.
Founded: 1992
Place: Philadelphia, PA; San Francisco, CA

CareScience provides Internet-based tools, designed to improve the quality and efficiency of health care, to hospitals, health systems, health plans and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Current projects include the CareScience Care Data Exchange, which will use peer-to-peer technology to give medical personnel easy access to crucial health-related data in hopes of reducing the number of deaths that occur each year due to medical errors that are often linked to physicians not having immediate access to information that they need to care for their patients. The Care Data Exchange is being piloted in Santa Barbara County, California as part of a demonstration project funded by The California Healthcare Foundation. It will facilitate data sharing among 20 leading health care organizations that provide care to over 300,000 covered lives. Upon successful implementation in Santa Barbara County in winter 2001, CareScience will replicate the technology in other communities throughout California and the nation.

CenterSpan (www.centerspan.com)

Collaborative
Type: Private
CEO: Frank G. Hausmann
Place: Hillsboro, OR

CenterSpan Communications Corp. is a developer and marketer of Internet software applications for communication and collaborative information sharing. The company is developing a next generation peer-to-peer network incorporating digital rights management. This provides a secure and legal digital distribution channel enabling members to publish, search and purchase all forms of digital content. CenterSpan's technology platform will provide content owners with the ability to track and account for their content within the channel. The company currently anticipates that the beta version of the product will be released in the first quarter of 2001. The capabilities of the new software to allow users to:

The company anticipates that revenue from the new software will be generated from the distribution and purchase of digital content, applications and physical goods including:

Centrata (www.centrata.com)

Distributed Computing
Type: Private
CEO: Shishir Mehrotra
Place: Menlo Park, CA

Born at MIT and developed by pioneers in distributed computing, Centrata has created technology that revolutionizes networking. They take ordinary desktop computers, each one unstable and insecure in its own right, and combine them to create the ideal, enterprise-class computing platform. Centrata boasts petabytes of storage, gigaflops of processing power, and a geographic reach the world round.
Centrata is creating a peer-to-peer network capable of enabling new storage, communications, commerce, and processing applications never before thought possible.

Clip2 (dss.clip2.com)

File-Sharing
Founded: 1999
Place: Palto Alto, CA

"Clip2 originated in the area of collaborative human-powered Web search, first fielding a related Web-based consumer service. In 2000, Clip2 began an initiative known as "Distributed Search Solutions" to explore advancing collaborative search through P2P technology. This initiative focused primarily on Gnutella, an open and fully decentralized P2P system. Clip2 introduced the Reflector, a special Gnutella server that simultaneously improves the end-user experience and reduces network traffic. They provide technical design advisory services to P2P projects and work with network operators to reduce adverse impact of P2P systems on their networks."
(as found at the Clip2 website)

Consilient (www.consilient.com)

Agents as Peers
Type: Private
CEO: Jonathan Hare
Place: Berkeley, CA

Consilient, Inc. is focused on delivering peer-to-peer Internet infrastructure software for e-business. Our technology fundamentally enhances the way people and companies collaborate, removes the friction from business transactions, and drives the creation of a global virtual marketplace. Consilient technology has the power to aggregate any content and automate any business process, allowing you to work seamlessly with anyone, inside or outside of your company walls. Our approach translates directly into tangible benefits for your business, including:

DataSynapse (www.datasynapse.com)

Distributed Computing
CEO: Peter Y. Lee

You will get paid in "Flooz bucks", online currency that can be spent at web stores, for every hour your computer is online, processing data.
DataSynapse is designed only for users with broadband Internet connections and is only currently working on one project.

Distributed.net (http://distributed.net)


Distributed Computing
Founded: 1997

Distributed.net researches, explores, and implements distributed computing technologies utilizing public-access data networks to allow personal computers to collaborate on large computational tasks. Distributed.net organizes projects like cracking data encryption schemes (legally) and searching for Optimal Golomb Rulers (measuring systems used in radio astronomy and X-ray crystallography).

Distributed Science, Inc (www.distributedscience.com)


Distributed Computing
Type: Private
CEO: Harris Hall
Founded: 2000
Place: Pasadena, CA

Develops software that uses peer-to-peer technology to replace expensive and significantly slower supercomputers. The software works by dividing tasks into smaller, manageable bits and sends them to PC's within the corporate intranet to process. The company's huge ProcessTree Network links hundreds of thousands of PC's that are used to perform various projects.
The ProcessTree Network is owned and operated by Distributed Science. Users donate part of their computing time to meaningful causes and competitions; Distributed Science is sponsoring the ProcessTree Volunteers Network, formerly known as DCypher.Net.
Goals also include to explore the potential of distributed processing on the Internet and to compete among the participants and the teams they form.
User downloads client software and enters participant number, it then connects users with servers when online, and offers the chance to sign up with ongoing and upcoming projects, paid and volunteer. Each time you connect to the Internet after that and the work unit has been fully processed, the result is sent back to our servers and a new work unit is downloaded.
Distributed Science is currently working with Envive (the company's first paying customer) to work on the problem of real time quality-of-service measurement. They also have the "Gamma Flux" project (non-profit) under works which uses the ProcessTree Network to help a Swedish radiation scientist in his effort to build safer storage for radioactive waste by "simulating the radiation around an encapsulated radioactive source."

Engenia Software, Inc (www.engenia.com)

Collaborative
Type: Private
CEO: Jeffrey Crigler
Founded: 1998
Place: Herndon, VA

Engenia develops collaborative software for businesses. Its first product, EngeniaUnity, is described as "the first event-driven, collaborative platform with a peer-to-peer architecture." The software connects partners, employees and suppliers and alerts the user to what is happening that requires their attention by integrating the PC with the corporate server and the web.

Entropia (www.entropia.com)

Distributed Computing
Type: Private
CEO: James Madsen
Founded: 1997
Place: San Diego, CA

Entropia develops software which enables a company to use peer-to-peer technology to complete large projects. Customers include a digital media post-production company and a company that tests Web site performance. Competes with Applied MetaComputing, Centrata, Parabon Computation, and United Devices.
Entropia is also currently involved in assisting non-profit research projects:

FirstPeer (www.firstpeer.com)

File-Sharing
President: Brent Gutekunst
Founded: 2000

"FirstPeer is a privately held firm building the next generation of marketplaces and communities on the Internet using cooperative P2P technology. FirstPeer accomplishes this by providing the tools, infrastructure, and services to capitalize on Peer-to-Peer's inherent ability to increase efficiencies and reduce costs by utilizing existing infrastructures. "
(as found at www.firstpeer.com)

Groove Networks (www.groovenetworks.com)

Collaborative
Type: Private
CEO: Ray Ozzie
Founded: 1997
Place: Beverly, MA

Groove Networks, Inc. provides a solution platform and application for peer-to-peer Internet interaction. Groove's technology reaches beyond the World Wide Web paradigm, leveraging the two-way capabilities of the Internet to strengthen the connections among people who interact online.
Among Groove's strengths are its support for transparency (working seamlessly from behind firewalls) and offline queueing (auto-updating of shared spaces between on and offline Groove users). Groove relay services is the key.

Interbind (www.interbind.com)

Collaboration
Type: Private
CEO: Geoffrey W. Smith
Founded: 2000
Place: New York, NY

"Interbind software supports open, secure, low-cost business-to-business systems based on Web Services. Web Services are self-contained, modular business applications that can be described, published, located and invoked over the Internet. Interbind software acts to extend and connect various Web Services while routing and translating the data traffic among Web Service users." (from www.interbind.com)

Kalepa (www.kalepa.com)

Distributed Computing
Type: Private
CEO: Miko Matsumura
Founded: 1999
Place: Palo Alto, CA

This company develops software that enables peer-to-peer networking and distributed computing. Kalepa is developing software to help companies create peer-to-peer networks for the sharing of information. The software includes a management tool designed to speed the flow of data traffic on the network. Company previously provided customizable Internet search services to consumers. Plans to generate revenue initially from licensing fees and later from transaction fees. Potential partners include online storage networks like I-drive and Skydesk. Customers will be developers of consumer and corporate software.
While the company is shifting its focus toward providing the nuts and bolts of file sharing, Kalepa's strategy remains unclear.

Lightshare (www.lightshare.com)

e-Commerce File-Sharing
Type: Private
CEO: Clarence Kwan
Founded: 1999
Place: Mountain View, CA

Lightshare develops and provides an e-commerce marketplace on a peer-to-peer network. Customers on the network can buy and sell digital files that exist on the seller's computer. Using a Web-based interface, customers can search for goods and list goods for sale. Goods for sale are stored locally and listed on a central server to which all users can connect. Initially sales will be limited to electronic files, but sales may include physical products in the future. The company intends to limit pirated content by monitoring traffic and ensuring that customers can establish ownership of goods upon registration. Target partners are e-commerce software developers and providers of online payment services. Targets consumers, digital content providers, and software companies as customers. Competes with eBay, Flycode, Scour, and Napster.
While the company has a more coherent business plan than others in the peer-to-peer area, its success hinges on the ability to attract and retain users, something that's easier said than done.

Napster (www.napster.com)

File-Sharing
Type: Private
CEO: Hank Barry
Founded: 1999
Place: Redwood City, CA

"Napster's software application enables users to locate and share media files from one convenient, easy-to-use interface. It also provides media fans a forum to communicate their interests and tastes with one another via instant messaging, chat rooms, and Hot List user bookmarks." (as found at www.napster.com)

NextPage (www.nextpage.com)

Web Indexing
CEO: Bill Wesemann
Founded: 1999
Place: Lehi, Utah

NextPage Peer-to-Peer Content Networking creates solutions that give you integrated access to structured and unstructured content existing on distributed servers and in a wide range of file formats. You can quickly and easily search and navigate millions of digital assets, categorize all types of content, gain secure access to information, and personalize your interaction with that information.

OpenCOLA (www.opencola.com)

Web Indexing
Type: Private
CEO: Grad Conn
Founded: 1999
Place: San Francisco, CA

This company develops open-source software for peer-to-peer and distributed computing. Its OpenCOLA software uses artificial intelligence to provide better search results. Users can provide feedback to the software, improving its ability to find specific files. Its COLAvision software collects video and MP3 files based on user-specified preferences and also broadcasts randomly selected files from a user-specified directory over a streaming server. COLAvision currently searches Gnutella. OpenCOLA plans to enable both applications to access and search Gnutella, Napster, and other search sites. The company also plans to generate revenue by charging a percentage-based fee on transactions completed with its software. OpenCOLA targets software developers, businesses, and consumers as customers. It competes with Gnutella, InfraSearch, FreeNet, and Napster.
OpenCOLA provides more sophisticated search capabilities than its file-sharing counterparts, but it may not be for the average Internet user. Its biggest challenges are avoiding copyright pitfalls and finding a way to make money.

OpenDesign (www.opendesign.com)

Development Frameworks
CEO: Edward Jung
Place: Bellevue, WA and San Francisco, CA

"OpenDesign provides software infrastructure for efficient, robust, and highly-scalable distributed applications. Its patent pending algorithms help adapt the network to applications rather than the other way around. OpenDesign's products enhance existing and emerging programming environments to create load-balanced, fault tolerant applications and services that can be hosted anywhere in the network."
(as found at www.opendesign.com)

Parabon Computation (www.parabon.com)

Distributed Computing
Type: Private
CEO: Steven Armentrout
Founded: 1999
Place: Fairfax, VA

Parabon Computation has research projects (and will have commercial projects) and has a secure Java client like Popular Power's.
The client currently participates in one or more of the following projects:

Parabon has a sweepstakes for active participants who can also qualify to win $100 every day if the Pioneer client connects to the Parabon servers, and one participant a month wins $1000.

Popular Power (www.popularpower.com)

Distributed Computing
Type: Private
CEO: Mark Hendlund
Founded: 2000.
Place: San Francisco, CA

Popular Power is building a platform for Internet-wide distributed computing. The Popular Power Worker software allows Internet users to participate in large-scale computational projects such as vaccine research, computer graphics rendering, financial simulations, Internet databases, and many others. Using the power of Internet-connected computer working together, Popular Power can tackle problems previously thought unsolvable.
The Popular Power Worker software acts in the background, activated when the user is away from their computer, getting a small piece of a large computing task from the Popular Power site, and then returning the results. This model has recently gained wide attention due to the accomplishments of the SETI@home project and other, similar volunteer Internet efforts.
Popular Power is the first distributed computing company to release software allowing any business to do work on its platform -- earlier efforts were only able to do one job at a time, which is insufficient for commercial applications. Once the final release of the platform is available, users will be compensated for work done on their computers, earning rebates, discounts, or gift certificates for Internet purchases. The company will also donate time to non-profit and public interest projects.
Popular Power is launching its network with a non-profit medical research application, available today. The company will donate resources to an ongoing research project that utilizes computer modeling as one technique to better understand influenza vaccination. For Internet users, this allows participation in a project that can have an impact on public health, and help save peoples' lives. For biotechnology companies, this application serves as a good reference application, demonstrating the power of the platform and providing an example implementation.

Porivo Technologies (www.porivo.com)

Distributed Computing
Type: Private
CEO: Will Holmes
Founded: 1999
Place: Durham, NC

Evaluates the performance of large websites to find bottlenecks with Porivo Technologies' distributed client, Porivo PEER and its first project, peerReview. (And collect sweepstakes entries and possibly win US$4000 in gift certificates at Buy.com.)
peerReview taps into Porivo's distributed network of PEERs. Periodically, the PEER will communicate with Porivo's peerPlane server via the Internet, signal that it's available for work, and request a work unit. Once your PC receives a work unit from the peerPlane server, it processes the work unit using your computer's spare resources. Then, once your PC completes its work unit, it sends the results back to the peerPlane servers where they are combined with the results of thousands of other PCs around the world.

SmartPeer (www.smartpeer.com)

Devices as Peers
Place: New York, NY

"SmartPeer™ is a software and hardware solution that enables retailers to make merchandise and pricing information directly available to their customers. Customers can search every SmartPeer™ enabled store simultaneously and locate the products they wish to buy at the most convenient location for them. Once a customer has located a product, SmartPeer™ facilitates the transaction process allowing the customer to make an online or wireless purchase and then pick the item up at the store or have it delivered the same day. "
(as found at www.smartpeer.com)

ToadNode (toadnode.com)

File-Sharing
Place: New York, NY

"Toadnode.com, LLC. produces Toadnode, a free, multi-language, peer-to-peer file sharing application. Toadnode is compatible with Gnutella and works with computers running most versions of Windows. The most current version bundles Clip2 DSS (as part of its QuickConnect feature), which crawls the network and analyzes it to provide the best-positioned nodes on the network. The list is continuously refreshed, and all nodes are confirmed to be active."
(as found at www.oreillynet.com)

United Devices (www.uniteddevices.com)

Distributed Computing
Type: Private
CEO: Ed Hubbard
Founded: 2000
Place: Austin, TX

Commercial Projects are initiated by customers who directly compensate United Devices for use of products and services.
Public Cause Projects are initiated by non-profit organizations that are granted the use of United Devices products and services, sometimes in conjunction with a sponsorship partner. Participants are entered in sweepstakes drawings for prizes.
Projects include:

XDegrees (www.xdegrees.com)

MetaData
Type: Private
CEO: Michael Tanne
Place: Mountain View, CA

XDegrees is creating a new service using a peer-to-peer approach, an evolution in Internet computing potentially as significant as the Web.
Although Xdegrees has taken off its shroud, Mr. Tanne is still keeping details of the company under wraps. He declines to give specifics about its technology or even how it's going to make money.