Google: Aiding in Enterprise Collaboration Once Again

Google recently launched Google Sites, which allowed companies to use this service on their own domains. Now, according to this post on The Official Google Blog, they’ve made it even easier for companies to build websites and share information throughout the enterprise.

Now on Google Sites, organizations can look forward to being able to collaborate on team projects, share information on company intranets, create community groups, forums, updates, and many more things. Companies no longer have to host the service on their domain, they can safely host their website at http://sites.google.com/[your-website]. The best part of all is that it is free!

It will be interesting to see how this will perform against other enterprise applications like Zoho People, which allow human resource departments to keep track of employees through an intranet.

Move over SharePoint, Google’s got a challenge

The New York Times posted a blog today about Google’s latest venture. It was announced yesterday that Google has unveiled their own version of Enterprise 2.0 software. With the announcement of Google Sites, Google has unveiled a tool that incorporates email, calendars, excels, documents and presentation software. What should Microsoft be the most worried about? It can be free of charge. And who is the brains behind this project? Joe Kraus, who was behind the website Excite which experienced its peak a few years ago, is the developer of this software.

The problem that Google might face when it comes to the technologies is that the information stored within the program is not on companies personal servers. The software also has limitations and is not as precise as SharePoint, but, since the application is free, many companies can overlook that.

I think Google is targeting little businesses. Huge corporations can afford that millions and millions of dollars it costs to finance Microsoft products. They probably already have SharePoint and are using the product effectively. However, for the millions of start ups and tiny companies that cannot pay the fees associated with keeping the Microsoft Suite up to date, this is a decent alternative. I think these programs will grow slowing into a developing marketplace.