Trumpeting it as the filling of “a key last hole in the Google Apps suite,” Matt Glotzbach, product management director for Google Enterprise, heralded the arrival of Google Sites - exclusively available in Google Apps - but early reactions have included industry bloggers who are not overly impressed with Google's use of AJAX despite its claim to make "Building a site...as simple as editing a document, and you don't need anyone's help to get started."

"Use Google Sites to centralize all types of information -- from videos to presentations -- and share your site with just a few people, your entire organization, or the world," gushes the official announcement at sites.google.com.

But industry blogger Zoli Erdos isn't impressed with Google's makeover of its JotSpot acquisition. "Google now has a pretty good and easy web-page creator with some wiki features made user-friendly, and a half-hearted attempt at integrating the rest of the Apps empire using Sites," he writes, adding: "Perhaps they get it right in the next release."

Dennis Howlett quibbles with the use of AJAX to allow users to add gadgets, which he finds sorely wanting. "At the very least, Google should get rid of the gadgets addition facility and rework it," he advises. "Otherwise, I sense the SMBs at which it is aimed will find the service a turn off."

Or, as he puts it very bluntly: "Please avoid the gadgets. They’ll drive you nuts."

Howlett goes to far as to say he believes Google is in danger of blowing its chance to out-Microsoft Microsoft and make SharePoint second-best:

"Google has a real chance to differentiate itself from Microsoft - which is clearly what it wants to do, while adding significant numbers of users to its Google Apps offering. It won’t do it this way because despite all the gripes around Microsoft products, the fact is Microsoft offers a more polished experience. Until Google truly understands this, it will find it difficult to adequately compete. In the meantime, offerings like Wetpaint and Ning have little to fear. They may not have the richness of other applications upon which to draw but given the usability issues I found, richness won’t be enough to push users over to Google."

"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."

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