SA_Dave's comments pretty much sum up my own view of the situation. FrontCode keeps developing its serverless technology actively and that is a good thing for us users. Especially when the connection and transfer mechanisms themselves are being revamped, it makes sometimes technical sense to start a fresh experiment with no old buggy client versions in the network.
I tried to find some information on FrontCode's business plans regarding WinMX but nothing seems to be available - I wonder if they have found one yet (Napster never did). Anyway, developing serverless p2p software that can link millions of people together is a potentially valuable project in itself. There are probably several media giants that would love to own such cheap communication/networking technology giving them an immediate and exclusive access to a million-wide dedicated user community.
I am not particularly worried about WinMX becoming spyware-infested anytime soon (although even stranger things have happened in the p2p world). Maybe they do not need money that badly at this stage. As long as they are not attacked by the copyright nazis they may well be able to afford a small development team bringing the technology even further. They seem to operate on a low budget so there is no hurry to make it profitable. No money is burned for brand building (as Jack once said, their logo has 'designed by a relative' written all over it
)Two or three paid programmers might be enough to do what they are doing and with the serverless technology there is no need for expensive infrastructure or bandwidth either.
- tg
