Google Sites Taking on SharePoint?

I haven't messed with the latest and greatest SharePoint version, but they are going to need to 'kick it up a notch' if Google is going to play in this market.

GOOGLE GOES AFTER SHAREPOINT
Perhaps as a move to upstage Microsoft's first SharePoint conference
next week (http://tinyurl.com/yo2b6r), Google today took the wraps
off Google Sites, a set of tools that can be used to create
collaborative Web sites.
http://sites.google.com/

The new offering, which is built on a wiki technology the company
acquired last year, will be the latest member to the company's Google
Apps suite of software. Supposedly, Google Sites helps users with just
a smidge of technical ability to piece together Web sites in a matter
of minutes. They can use these sites to house different functions such
as calendars, spreadsheets and videos.

While the technology appears to be aimed at non-technical consumers,
the timing of the announcement relative to Redmond's SharePoint
conference might be sending a signal about where Google ultimately
wants to target the product. Some feel that Google is hoping business
users will hold Google Sites and SharePoint side-by-side and,
consequently, steal some of those users looking primarily for hosted
solutions. The company is betting some users don't want to invest any
more infrastructure solutions based inside their IT shops.

Google has been pretty adept at wedging its way into corporate
environments under the IT radar (something Microsoft itself was pretty
adept at doing 20 years ago), but it figures to have its hands full
competing against Redmond's SharePoint franchise, which is becoming
fairly well-entrenched in larger IT shops.

By Ed Scannell
Editor, Redmond magazine
escannell@redmondmag.com