Nearly two years ago, we launched Google Sites to make it easier, faster and more affordable for employees to create and collaborate in rich, dynamic sites, even without any technical background. We’re seeing companies large and small gravitate to Google Sites, shifting away from legacy on-premises workspace solutions.

Our customers really tell the story best. Ron Brister, Senior Manager of Worldwide IT Operations for Serena Software, says, “We’re moving our project workspace collaboration to Google Sites because it requires less expertise and administration than Microsoft SharePoint, and it’s easier for employees to use. Better ease-of-use directly translates into more fluid information-sharing, which helps our teams move faster and cross-pollinate good ideas.”

Luke Leonhard, Web Services Manager for Brady Corporation adds, “Google Sites is a very efficient way for our teams to aggregate and share information together. With our old IBM Lotus Quickr solution, it took seven clicks and three page refreshes for employees to publish new information internally. Google Sites makes it just two clicks. Because Sites makes it so easy, coworkers are sharing information more freely than ever before.”

Bill Behrman, Stanford University Associate Consultant Professor adds, “Typically, public information officers create press releases and other content in Word documents, email these to their Web people, and wait for the Web folks to update the website. With Google Sites, the Santa Clara Public Health Department public information officers were able to directly and instantly publish and update content on the web. This brings critical information to local residents without delay, and government agencies don't need to worry about their servers being overwhelmed with website traffic.”

Today, we’re helping companies move to Google Sites even more quickly with templates for sites like employee intranets, project tracking sites, team sites, employee profile pages and more. Templates give you a head-start with page layouts, navigation links, embedded gadgets, content, themes and other site attributes. Employees can submit their own templates to a private gallery for colleagues to use, so the gallery will become even more useful over time.

Example template: employee intranet site


If your business is ready to move beyond traditional collaboration hardware and software, learn more about Google Apps (which includes Google Sites). You can try Premier Edition free for 30 days, or contact our corporate sales team to begin exploring a larger deployment.

We also invite you to join us on Thursday, November 19th at 10:00 a.m. PST (1:00 p.m. EST) for a web seminar on Google Sites. You'll learn how your business can efficiently collaborate with Google Sites, including how to use the new site templates features. Register here.

Posted by Anil Sabharwal, Product Manager, Google Apps team