Google has done it again. It has given users a free online service that elsewhere will cost you — much. This time it is an online collaboration tool.

Google Sites allows anyone to put up a collaboration web site for project management, team coordination, a company intranet or extranet, and other types of online information gathering where several people are contributing.

This is what Google says about the new addition to Google Docs Apps:

“Google Sites is the easiest way to make information accessible to people who need quick, up-to-date access. People can work together on a Site to add file attachments, information from other Google applications (like Google Docs, Google Calendar, YouTube and Picasa), and new free-form content. Creating a site together is as easy as editing a document, and you always control who has access, whether it’s just yourself, your team, or your whole organization. You can even publish Sites to the world. The Google Sites web application is accessible from any internet connected computer.”

Search Engine Journal points out that Google Site is a scaled down version of rival Microsoft’s Sharepoint collaboration software:

“But unlike Sharepoint where users will have to buy hardware and software at costly terms, Google Sites eliminates that by offering a free service under Google Apps. ”

And Microsoft is still not able to come up with a plan that replaces its reliance on sale of software with advertising based online services.

Note the list of Google services in the quote above. Google is aiming for a technological lock-in where the comfort of sticking to one log-in account (your Gmail address) stops you from making use of competing services.

This is one of the reasons Microsoft is so eager to buy Yahoo! Together the two companies will have a number of online services (and in particular email) that may stop this from happening.

UPDATE March 1 2008:

Note that Google Sites is an application under Google Apps, not Google Docs.

Google Apps is a service offered by Google to companies, organizations (and Blogger users that sign up for a unique domain!) that combines various Google services in one package. This applies for instance to email, instant messaging, and calendar accounts on your own domain name.

So, Google will not let you sign up for Google Sites with your Gmail account email address. They will ask for your company or organization address, and if that doesn’t suit you, you must buy a domain name from them. In short: They accept that you make your own virtual organization. A domain name is cheap these days, so putting up a Google Site remains an easy option, but not as easy as we originally envisaged.

Having Google Sites as an option under Google Docs (the online word processor/spreadsheet/presentation package) would make it much more popular.