Google launches tool for websites
Google Inc., already the world’s most-popular spot for finding websites, is aiming to become the go-to place for creating websites too.
The company is taking its first step toward that goal today with the debut of a free service designed for high-tech neophytes looking for a simple way to share information with other people working in the same company or attending the same class in school.
With only a few clicks, just about anyone will quickly be able to set up and update a website featuring an array of material, including pictures, calendars and video from Google’s YouTube subsidiary, said Dave Girouard, general manager of the division overseeing the new application.
“We are literally adding an edit button to the Web,” Girouard said.
All sites created on the service will run on one of Google’s computers.
Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., acquired many of the website tools when it bought a Silicon Valley start-up, JotSpot, last year.
The tools are the latest addition to a bundle of applications that Google offers to individuals and businesses as alternatives to similar products sold by Microsoft Corp., one of Google’s fiercest rivals.
Google’s latest service represents a challenge to Microsoft’s SharePoint, which charges licensing fees. Google is unveiling its alternative just a few days before Microsoft hosts a SharePoint conference in Seattle.
While Microsoft’s programs typically are installed on individual computers, Google keeps its application on its own machines so users can access them from anywhere with an Internet connection.
By gradually introducing free versions of word-processing, spreadsheet and calendar programs over the last two years, Google has been threatening to siphon revenue away from Microsoft, which makes most of its money from software sales.
Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., hopes to take a bite out of Google’s bread-and-butter in online search and advertising by buying Yahoo Inc. for more than $40 billion. Yahoo, so far, is trying to ward off the takeover bid.
