Online meetings and collaboration. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. Peer to peer networking became notorious thanks to Napster... .which in its original form... allowed people all over the world to download music from each other's computers. But the concept is useful in lots of other ways. Sigma Designs... .which for decades has created professional design software for architects... .is now out with a peer to peer collaboration program called eZmeeting. CEO Charlie White...

"It is really one of the world's only pure peer to peer solutions that's out there that has no central servers, that works directly over the Internet and completely bypasses the Web in order to allow collaboration. So for instance, with The Gap... they could be building a store here in New York and a contractor who has a problem there can take a picture of the problem. The managers from San Francisco can see that directly on the contractor's computer. The engineers may be in Florida and they can see that and there may be a manufacturer involved in Michigan ... they also can join it. Everybody is able to work interactively with each other."

The program supports a variety of file formats and Microsoft Office documents. eZmeeting sells for two hundred dollars... ..but is being offered to students and teachers for only 20 dollars. A free 90 day trial version is available at eZmeeting.com. There is competition...from companies like Groove Networks... founded by Lotus Notes creator Ray Ozzie. It is still offers a free preview version of its software at groove.net. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.