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Google Bets Complexity will be the Death of MOSS

By Barb Mosher  | Published Feb 29, 2008

Increasingly a force to be reckoned with in the applications space, Google has finally re-launched JotSpot — it's answer to the SharePoint (MOSS) way of enterprise collaboration — to be forever called Google Sites.

Aside from the fact that they lack imagination when naming their services (I think the most creative was 'gmail'), what's all the hoopla about Google Sites and why do so many think it's the beginning of the end for SharePoint?

Google picked up JotSpot in October 2006. It continued to operate, but didn't accept new registration and stopped putting out enhancements. The rumors of it's impeding re-release started in September 2007 — that's a long time to wait to put out a new product/service in the web world.

Google Sites is available as part of Google Apps. You just need to sign up with a business or school email address (Google needs a valid domain name). It provides the ability to create a website, intranet or virtual classroom.

You can include content such as YouTube videos, Google Calendar, Google Docs, presentations and attachments. Google even integrated it's search capabilities into the service.

What it doesn't have right now is social-networking capabilities. They are coming though, to be “baked in” using the OpenSocial APIs and the Social Graph API. In addition, capabilities for sharing video and the use of iGoogle gadgets and APIs to embed objects within a site will be provided somewhere down the road.

In a recent interview Matt Glotzbach, product management director for Google Enterprise called it “the nucleus for other pieces to fit into for online collaboration”. Call it what you will, but what you won't hear Google call it is a wiki — even though that's what JotSpot was best known as.

SharePoint's Biggest Rival

Although both camps deny they even look at what their competitors are doing, the reality is that Business 101 is all about “know thy competition”. It's pretty obvious Google is going after Microsoft's small business market to start offering services like gmail, Google Docs and Google Sites.

They are just doing it in a different way. Where Microsoft owns the desktop and associated desktop apps like Microsoft Office, Google is trying to own the cloud - providing similar services across the Internet.

So how does SharePoint fare against Google Sites? At this point, they aren't exactly playing in the same ballgame. SharePoint does offer much more capability. But they are playing in the same tournament and it's only a matter time before the two come truly head to head.

Where you may see early signs of the battle could be between Google Sites and Offices Live Workspaces. Office Live Workspaces is Microsoft's less than stellar response to support the small to mid-size market for SharePoint.

Perhaps Google is betting on the lightweight cloud computing to win over the hearts and minds of frustrated SharePoint owners who get unexpectedly mired down in the complexity of a really good SharePoint implementation.

It doesn't help that Google Sites is free — with the exception of the Premier edition.

Feel free to take a gander at Google Sites, try it out and tell us if you think it really does rival the likes of SharePoint.

 
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6 Reader Comments

1 | Tom Kephart — February 29, 2008 2:28 PM

I agree that at this point, Microsoft doesn't appear to have any worries that Google Sites will poach their high-end Sharepoint customers. But in the small business market, where Sharepoint is often overly complex and expensive for their needs, Google Sites may have a good chance of attracting users.

Of course, that's a prime market for the open source CMS developers as well, so I'd be a bit more concerned as a Joomla or Drupal value-added developer.

2 | Chris — February 29, 2008 2:52 PM

Well, my company uses both Google Apps and SharePoint but for completely different reasons. It's kind of like Google offering their search technology. Yes, most people use the google.com search, but the enterprise adoption of Google's technology can't compare to Autonomy, Verity, etc.

3 | Chris Yeh — February 29, 2008 7:23 PM

Of course we're biased, but here at PBwiki (www.pbwiki.com), we're trying to find a golden mean where we can provide easy-to-use online collaboration that can supplement SharePoint, as well as stand on its own.

While we don't have the heavy-duty workflow of SharePoint (yet), for simple things like tracking projects, maintaining documentation, and running an intranet, PBwiki has won over a fair share of the market: 400,000 wikis, millions of users, and thousands of *paying* customers like Facebook, Symantec, DePaul University, and the FDA.

Barb, let me know if you'd like to try out the beta of our 2.0 (which we think really blows Google Sites away).

4 | juande ramos — March 1, 2008 8:56 AM

I think we're rapidly heading towards a similar situation to that in the '90s, where Microsoft had to be pulled back from total domination via anti-trust actions. Except now, of course, google are the ones threatening to run riot and dominate the Web.
Not their fault - they are just exceptional innovators and brilliant at what they do. But the sheer range of their products, taking into account synergies, is getting to the stage where it will preclude competition

5 | Shawn — June 17, 2009 10:27 PM

I was a huge fan of Google sites. Then I read the Terms of Service. Wow! Scary stuff.

"11. Content licence from you

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

11.2 You agree that this licence includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services."

6 | karthik — July 23, 2009 8:26 AM

This is the world of open source. But we have seen open office which has the same functionalities like MS.Office, but it stands out for its layout and several functionalities. I hope more developers need to share their thoughts to make this better

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