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 andHyperOffice 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 thatit 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 ofthese claims have been effectively critiqued. As my colleagueAlan Pelz-Sharpe points out,Sites is hardly a SharePoint killer andAdriaan Bloem getsdeeper in discussing the broader application of Sites.

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