Google: Team Collaboration Within Its Grasp

Where does Google go after having the dominant market share in search and its hold on Enterprise collaboration growing by the day? The latest article from ZDNet came through my reader today and it highlights Google’s newest release of Google Apps Team Edition. Rajen Sheth, senior product manager for Google Apps, sums up how it works:

“In previous versions of Google Apps, Standard and Premier, the IT department had to get involved in verifying domains and centrally managing users. With the Team Edition a project group can use Google Docs on a project or the Calendar, and individuals on a team can sign up just using their email address.”

Projects in business enterprise environments are handled by teams, so any application that can ease collaboration between users without having to burden IT departments constantly are valuable. Now by simply entering their email addresses users are instantly able to share documents, calendar events, and form connections with other users.

Over the next couple of months we will see many users doubt the security of data sharing on Google’s portal, since most corporations out there are still using Office, but over time this trend will change. Sheth has mentioned that over 2,000 businesses sign up for Google Apps daily combined for a total of over 500,000 companies activated to date ranging from small, medium, and large organizations.

Google has found a way to reduce IT involvement in project management, but will Microsoft be releasing a similar application soon? We have an exciting couple of months ahead of us…