I spent another lazy weekend downloading lots of stuff using my favorite torrent software. And I love the results most of the time. I dont claim to have a very fast connection and still manage to make the maximum out of it.

As a software designer, I have often wondered (but seldom discussed) why Torrents are not being accepted so widely by corporates.

With the kind of complex implementations we see these days, and the amount of unused (or say underused) computing power lying with client desktops and remote servers, why not really make use of it?

Why is it that a company with offices in New York and Cincinnati cannot make use of Torrent software to optimize its networking needs? People are downloading so much stuff from their WAN that it makes sense to try this out. Just putting more and more funds into increasing MBps (nowadays GBps) capacity is not gonna work forever. Is it?

For example, even the software product I work on, can easily make use of it. We transfer MBs worth of CAD drawings from one site folders to users in another site where they want to make use of it. Assuming the first time it is available in just one location, the download will still take that much time. But when a 3rd site asks for it, why not have network capacity from both the sites contribute towards making this file available on the 3rd site sooner.

If it is just security we are worried about, then these softwares have already intruded the client desktops. People are downloading music, videos and what not. Security is anyway about knowing your weakness and not about firing in the dark or closing everything down.