Google announced on Wednesday the introduction of Google Sites, a free service based on JotSpot, enabling companies and individuals to edit Web sites and better organize and share information, without any programming skills.

The new service came as a response to Microsoft’s SharePoint, but in a much simpler version, easier to maintain and requiring absolutely no upgrades. Google Sites will feature e-mail, calendar, presentations software, photos, videos and much more, and will require no computer genius to set it up.

Google Sites will become a key element of Google Apps and is expected to make quite an impact on the market. The service is based on the technology created by JotSpot, which Google acquired in October 2006 and will initially address business users.

There are a lot of things Google will need to prove in terms of functionality so as to determine SharePoint users to turn to Google Sites. One of the elements that make Google’s service different from SharePoint is that there is absolutely nothing to install, as Google stores the information and makes it available anywhere there is an internet connection, which is a great asset in terms of mobility.

Google developers like to consider it better that any similar offers available on the market today, but that is still something they will need to prove. They have a huge advantage though, which might give Google Sites a push start: it’s totally free.

What makes Google Sites so easy to use is that is doesn’t require a team of specialists to setup, manage, maintain and upgrade it, and the company using the service will also have the freedom to choose the level of accessibility for visitors who wish to access the site.

Google Sites could spread from companies to individual users and why not, to the educational system, enabling an efficient organization of school homework assignments and many other activities involving a classroom.