SharePoint has been the growing business standard for online collaboration for the past few years and continues to grow it’s presence and use.  However, “GOOGLE WAVE” is being touted as a SharePoint rival.  Google wave works like instant messaging inside of email, but with more juice than email because you can launch apps and collaborate in real time inside the wave.  In addition, there will soon be an “APP STORE” just like the iPhone where any developer can release any plug in for Google wave including document sharing, video collaboration, and just about anything you can think of. In addition, there will be a moble edition where you can WAVE (online email chat) using your mobile device.  In addition, the APIs available will allow you to tweet from your waves… you can also post videos, interactive maps, share documents and so much more. Click here for the basic “What is Google Wave” video (1hour).

An article from Bamboo states that Google Wave doesn’t even compete with SharePoint. Here is why… “There is no sign of document management, content management, workflow, data integration, dashboarding etc. etc.     Maybe if they fully integrated Wave, Google Sites, Google Apps, Google Gears, Google Calendar in a comprehensive platform… then you might have something.  But Microsoft has a big head start in lashing together all of these disparate capabilities and a huge installed base of customers to drive innovation based on real world feedback.”  When the Google Wave app store is opened for business, then we will unveil if any of these capabilities compete with the SharePoint platform… keeping in mind it must have some semblance of security trim.  I still think it’s a bit early to really determine if it will have any true impact to the SharePoint community.  But on my initial impression, I speculate that it will just compete with Exchange, Yahoo Mail, IMs and be replaced by GMAIL.