There's a lot of buzz around the Web concerning the recent release of Google Sites publishing tool. Its focus is built around being simple to use, while at the same time being a tool people across a business can use to interact concerning projects. The odd thing is Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) has for some reason decided not to call it a wiki, even though it's what it in reality is.
What was especially interesting to me with Google, wasn't the simple tools being offered, but the way they're going about marketing the tool. They're pretty much bypassing IT markets, and going directly to the people.
This basically means they're looking for scale right away, and not marketing to early adopter types, who are more geekish and demanding of sophisticated tools.
Google isn't trying to create a niche here, rather they're trying to go to the masses from the beginning.
Anytime you hear the term simplicity used with a product offering, it usually means a company is going beyond a niche offering in order to reach a more general enduser; in this case office workers.
Google Sites Presentation
Here's some of the stories around the web covering Google Sites:
Google unveils new website publishing tools for office workers.
The new Google Sites publishing tool will assist office workers setup simple websites which takes direct aim at Microsoft's rival SharePoint franchise.
Google Sites, known as the new simple website publishing tool, is a scaled back version of JotSpot, a simple service for business organizations and webmasters to set up and edit sites that Google acquired 16 months ago.
The new publishing service is the latest push into the market for business and educational users, actively allowing novice users to organize content and share data such as Web links, calendars, photos, videos, presentations and widgets.
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The Simplicity of Google Sites
Adding a tool that allows the Web publication of the documents created with Google Docs it was just another logical step in Google’s initiative to help users and businesses alike to move their activities on the Web.
Usually, building a site from scratch requires not only a lot of work, but also some technical skills and HTML knowledge. But this not the case with Google Sites, an application based on the work of previously-acquired JotSpot.
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Look out: Google declares war on silos
In its latest effort to lure business users away from Microsoft, Google has taken the wraps off a new web-based collaborative software suite.
Called Google Sites, the offering allows groups to quickly build web sites and share information on projects. According to the search giant, the suite overcomes the “silos of information” that exist inside most organisations.
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Google's Marketing Strategy for Google Sites
Google is actually going about marketing to the enterprise market in a pretty ingenious way--they're not. Instead, they're bypassing the IT department (who would, in all honesty, probably laugh at the thought) and marketing their suite on the sly directly to the employees themselves: "Are the tools provided by your IT department too unwieldy to use? Is IT too slow to respond to your needs? Then forget IT and use Google Apps instead!" This is definitely a good plan for Google in the short term, but it's not one that is going to be good for them in the long run...especially when IT catches on to what their users are doing.
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