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March - 2008 - issue > Tech Tracker
Google unveils tools to set up website
Compiled By Christo Jacob
Monday, March 17, 2008
Search engine giant Google unveiled its plans to foray into website building game. The free service designed for high-tech neophytes aims at quickly setting up and updating a website. The move is a take on to Microsoft's SharePoint, which charges licensing fees. Google unveiled its alternative just a few days before Redmond-based Microsoft hosted a SharePoint conference in Seattle.

Dubbed Google Sites, it's built around JotSpot, the wiki platform that Google acquired in October of 2006 -- and whose previously unclear fate has been cause for quite a bit of hand-wringing. Now Google is aiming to make the Google Sites easy enough for a beginner yet feature-rich enough for a power user. For example, building a Google Site requires no HTML, according to the company: It's "as easy as editing a document," the company says. There's also a "growing list" of page templates to get users started, including "Web page, announcements, file cabinet, dashboard, and list," according to Google.

The tools are the latest addition to a bundle of applications that Google offers to consumers and businesses as alternatives to similar products sold by Microsoft. Google has been threatening to siphon Microsoft's revenue from the software for the past two years by gradually introducing free versions of word processing, spreadsheet, and calendaring programs on its machine. Hence, Microsoft is making aggressive moves to acquire Yahoo to put an axe to Google's bread and butter.

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