Google vs. SharePoint can be Apples vs. Oranges

Image by marj k via Flickr

Trends: Google vs. SharePoint can be Apples vs. Oranges.

Since the birth of SharePoint, Microsoft has marketed it as an internal collaboration platform, during a period when Intranet managers increasingly see collaboration as a high-priority service. Now, players such as Google and HyperOffice are trying to repeat SharePoint’s success, using an on-again, off-again “SharePoint Killer” marketing tactic combined with the idea of creating a kind of Intranet-in-a-box alternative. However, technology buyers inevitably discover with any technology — from Redmond or any competitor — there’s usually a wide gulf between the marketing hype and the implementation reality.

Google’s announcement today that it will allow Docs users to store other files inspired a fresh round of speculation in twittersphere about competition with SharePoint. File-sharing is essential to the modern enterprise, but storage alone doth not a collaboration application make.

Before that, Google made a big media push to promote their Sites application. The resulting coverage brought another round of “SharePoint Killer” claims. Most of these claims have been effectively critiqued. As my colleague Alan Pelz-Sharpe points out, Sites is hardly a SharePoint killer and Adriaan Bloem gets deeper in discussing the broader application of Sites.

Continues @ http://www.cmswatch.com/