If you have stayed current on your Tech News, you have undoubtedly heard about Google Sites. For those unfamiliar with the Google Site’s service, I’ll provide the Cliff Notes version. Launched February 27, 2008, Google Sites is a wiki platform targeted towards small and medium sized businesses. The service has been made a part of the pre-existing Google Apps service. Google Sites is essentially a re-launched version of JotSpot, which Google purchased in 2006.
What makes Google Sites unique is the way it integrates a wiki like platform with things like documents, spreadsheets ,presentations, calendars, and even video (YouTube). Some have compared Google Sites with other collaboration tools such as Microsoft SharePoint. While both are considered collaboration tools, I personally feel that SharePoint is much more robust than Google Sites. Of course one element Google beats Microsoft on without question is price. A public SharePoint site can prove incredibly costly, whereas Google Sites is FREE. After playing around with the service myself, I’d compare Google Sites to a service more like Central Desktop than I would SharePoint.
Even still, the big push at Google seems to be integration. Google Sites is but one example of some new offerings from the internet goliath. The other is Google Calendar Sync. If you’re like me, Microsoft Outlook is where you keep your calendar. For that reason, I have had a hard time making much use of Google Calendars, since the service didn’t play too well with MS Outlook. Well that shortcoming is one Google aims to fix with its recent release of Google Calendar Sync.
Using Google Calendar Sync you can sync your Google Calendar to your Outlook Calendar, your Outlook Calendar to your Google Calendar, or sync both to each other. Also if you’re a Blackberry user, Google has launched Google Sync for Mobile. Google Sync for Mobile is a small application that you install on your Blackberry that will sync your Google Calendar with your Blackberry Calendar.
Well, I will still have to explore all the features and options of Google sites, but at first it seemed more like an intranet alternative. I don’t know if we can compare Google Sites with tools like Caentral Desktop or Wrike. Wrike for example was created for project management, not just for collaboration. Though it gives freedom of horizontal and vertical communications, it has tools like timeline and reports, which are characteristic for project management and are vital for it.
What are the immediate advantages of the Google Sites over Microsoft’s Office. (Word, Excel and Powerpoint). After evaluating, I agree to your point that it is an excelent subsititute (not really) of Sharepoint over the internet. But, yes Share point is a much good product. Again there is that heavy amount that has to be shed out from the pocket for Share point.
Thanks
Abhishek
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