[ISRAEL] 2AM, a peer-to-peer interactive software company based
in New Jersey, has suspended the operations of its Israeli R&D center, laying
off some 50 employees, Israeli chief operations officer Meir Ekstein said
Sunday, confirming a report that appeared in Friday’s Jerusalem Post.
“We’re clinging to hope. Negotiations are continuing, and we’re exploring a
number of options,” Ekstein said. As for whether the idled employees will be
rehired in the event of renewed investment, he stressed that “everything is
possible.”
According to Ekstein, operations of the U.S. office have not been affected for
the time being. A conclusive picture of the company’s future in Israel should
be known within two weeks, he said.
2AM, which began operations as an online game developer in 1996, applied
its technology into the broader sphere of peer-to-peer computing in recent
years.
The company’s technological assets include its patented 2AM Creation
platform, which was designed to allow client computers to operate over the
Internet in unison, harnessing the CPU, bandwidth and memory of each client
to create what the company called a “virtual supercomputer” capable of
running large real-time applications.
2AM’s StreamingPeer software was developed with an eye to streaming
multimedia, utilizing the company’s peer-to-peer technology to enhance the
speed and quality of rich media broadband content.
Online gaming continued to be an important component of the company’s
operations. The 2AM Game Club enabled vast numbers of online players to
compete against each other in games of strategy after downloading the client
software.
The company had received investment capital from IDT Corp, a global
telecommunications company. The Jerusalem Post has reported that the
company has signed contracts with EarthLink, Prodigy, and various Internet
service providers for access to the company’s multi-user games.