bit-tech.net

BitTorrent replaces CEO, loses staff

Published on 10th November 2008 by Gareth Halfacree

Eric Klinker has replaced Doug Walker as BitTorrent's CEO, effective immediately, as the company struggles to make a profit.

With the credit crunch still causing turmoil worldwide, times are tough for many businesses – including file-sharing supremo BitTorrent.

CNet is reporting that the company behind one of the most popular file sharing protocols in history is struggling financially as it attempts to turn its technology into profit. Around half of its workforce – eighteen people in total – have been made redundant in order to reduce overheads, following a twenty two percent staff reduction back in August that saw the sales and marketing department trimmed down.

The company has also opted for major changes at the top, with chief executive officer Doug Walker being replaced by former chief technology officer Eric Klinker with immediate effect in the hopes that a fresh direction will stem the outpouring of money the company can't afford to lose.

A final cost-saving measure will see the company ditching the ill-fated BitTorrent Entertainment Network media store, opened back in 2007 as a way to turn pirates into paying customers for the copyright owners. Sadly, an audience largely comprised of people used to getting something for nothing wasn't the prime marketing ground the company was hoping for – so it's not really surprising to see it go.

Instead, the company hopes that with a techie at the helm and some of the more questionable ventures pared back it will be able to concentrate on selling its technology to firms looking to reduce the impact of large file downloads on their servers or networks – something many companies are thinking about in today's world of ubiquitous broadband for all.

Do you believe that BitTorrent is making the right choice by concentrating on being a provider of technology rather than media, or would a BitTorrent-powered DRM-free media store have been a huge success if the copyright owners would have only agreed? Share your thoughts over in the forums.

6 Comments

Discuss in the forums Reply

Gunsmith 10th November 2008, 09:18

i miss the days of when piracy was an art, now even my mother can do it :/

DougEdey 10th November 2008, 09:36

I just don't get who thought it'd be a good idea to turn a profit from P2P. Ever.

Sim0n 10th November 2008, 09:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gunsmith
i miss the days of when piracy was an art, now even my mother can do it :/

What you mean is, she can click a link and have a client download something.
Piracy would actually be the act of taking that camcorder into the cinema, or reverse-engineering a game .exe file to allow nocd's to work.

:P

Sathy 10th November 2008, 12:06

Yes, gone are the days when there was glory in piracy...oh, wait! That doesn't make any sense.

bowman 10th November 2008, 13:31

Profiwhat? How on earth are you going to profit from something like this?

Completely silly, you don't see 'the Linux Corporation' and Linus as chairman of the board. What they need is to look at the Mozilla Foundation and the Linux Foundation, rather.

knuck 12th November 2008, 05:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gunsmith
i miss the days of when piracy was an art, now even my mother can do it :/

I miss the days when we would try to download a game off of some warez website. The game would usually be about 150mb and split up in 75 2mb rar files. The games were small because the music was removed

Of course the challenge back then was to browse those warez site and try not to get caught because it would inevitably look like we were looking at porn