Napster fame to spark p2p explosion

Peer-to-peer revenues are set to jump from $42.8m this year to more than $4.53bn by 2007, according to research house Frost & Sullivan.

Peer-to-peer networking has so far been best known as the technology behind controversial music site Napster, but Frost & Sullivan predicts the number of businesses using P2P protocols will rise from 60,000 presently to 6.2 million by 2007.

Robert McKellar, analyst at Frost and Sullivan, said security, computational power and bandwidth are current obstacles to p2p growth.

McKellar added: "The PR from Napster has helped, as well as the great SETI project, but its some of the big boys like Sun and Intel who, by creating standards, will lead the technology's breakthrough."