Google adds discussion forums, e-mail lists to Google Apps

Google is beefing up Google Apps with the addition of mailing lists and forums. It is not doing this through its ultra-cool and hyped Google Wave app, but by revamping good-old Google Groups. Forums and e-mail lists via Groups will become a feature for the Education and Premier editions of Apps. In this way, Apps administrators can support private discussions strings and group mailing lists between employees.

With this addition, Apps, more than ever before, is aiming to be a corporate replacement for Microsoft Office/Outlook/Exchange and IBM’s similar Lotus suite. Forum discussions will lets users embed other Apps components into their discussion strings, including calendars, word-processing documents, presentations, videos and spreadsheets. Content posted to the forums is indexed in full text and searchable.

Apps now supports multiple ways to collaborate, and Google now has several somewhat competing applications for doing collaboration.

For instance, Google Apps has supported Google Talk, an instant messenger for just about forever. The just launched Google Wave is like an e-mail replacement in that it combines the functions of e-mail and instant messaging with the group functions of collaboration, and allows the embedding/creation of new apps. A wave can only be sent to, and used by, others who also have Wave accounts.

Granted, adding Groups (which is browser based) to Apps is probably technically easier than adding Wave (which is based on the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol -XMPP) to Apps.

Let’s also not forget that Google still owns and operates Orkut, a Facebook-like application that supports chatting and instant messaging and e-mail-like messaging.

While I’ll admit that adding Groups to Apps is a no-brainer, I wonder about the timing. Why now? Why not years ago? I’m not sure how much more attractive this will make Google Apps to the enterprise. Ask any Exchange admin what s/he thinks about Public Folders and you won’t hear nice comments. Though, then again, I suppose as long as they don’t have to manage them or store them, admins will be happy enough to hear that their Google Apps users have the option.

What else must Google do to make Apps more attractive to the average corporate user?

Please visit the Google Subnet home page for more news, blogs and podcasts. Sign up for the weekly Google newsletter. (Click on News/Google News Alert.) More blog posts from Google Subnet:

• Will Google be left in the dark over white spaces?
• Google offers free, public DNS server
• Google changes rules for Google News to placate publishers
• Android apps: Grab the Tiger by the Tail
• Universal Google personalization a virtual given
• Google thumbs its nose at SharePoint with 10 new enterprise search features
• 10 Google Apps add-ons for the enterprise
• Nine new apps that show off the power of Google Wave
• Google sticks it to Microsoft with Los Angeles cloud contract
• 10 stunning 3D buildings made with Google SketchUp

Subscribe to all Google Subnet bloggers or Follow Google Subnet on Twitter Julie Bort on Twitter.

Follow