I guess it was only a matter of time before we saw Google announce their WCM as a service. Although it is not yet official there is talk on the web about Google Sites which will enhance the existing Google Apps suite to provide users with the facility to create web sites, intranets and extranets in an online collaberative environment.

Google recently bought JotSpot which provides wikis and other collaberative applications including calendaring, file cabinet, photo gallery, spreadsheets, a group directory, a bug tracker and a forum. The new offering is to include the ability to download documents using Google Gears and work on them offline and is expected to include OCR capabilities, video conferencing as well as chat. 

Without a doubt this is a move that will shake up the already shakey WCM and ECM markets and will spark an increase in the SaaS offerings around WCM applications. Interesting times.