Google Offers Web Tool for Team Publishing Sites

Google has introduced a simple Web site publishing tool that enables office workers to set up and run their team collaboration sites, taking aim at SharePoint, which is owned by Microsoft.

The new publishing service, Google Sites, is a scaled-down version of JotSpot, which is an easy-to-edit service that allows users to run Web sites and which Google acquired 16 months ago, the company said Wednesday.

Google Sites, the latest stage in the company’s push into the market for business and educational users, allows nontechnical users to organize and share Web links, calendars, videos, presentations and other documents on a site that is easy to maintain.

Unlike SharePoint which typically requires organizations to buy and maintain their own hardware and software at costs that can run from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to serve one hundred users, Google Sites is hosted on Google computers and is free to users of Google Apps, which the company offers at a small fraction of the cost of Microsoft tools.