JotSpot to power new Google Sites in 2008

The usually tight-lipped Google revealed a few details on plans for Google Apps at a presentation in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where the company headquarters its AdWords team. Scott Johnston, a product manager for Google collaboration products, pitched members of the Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce on the benefits of Google Apps and dribbled out some future product info.

Andrew Miller of Your Search Advisor was there to capture Johnston's forward looking statements, including support for Google Gears for offline support for Google Apps (Docs, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Gmail, Calendar). In addition, Grand Central (a single phone number for all your phones) is a "huge priority" for integration into Google Apps.

JotSpot, the wiki application service that Google acquired in October 2006, will finally be integrated into Google Apps as Google Sites, an expansion of Google Page Creator. JotSpot founder Joe Kraus, who is now Google's director of product management, has said that the hold up has been moving the software to Google's infrastructure. Sites will provide a foundation for developing collaborative applications such as for project management. It's not clear from the data available if the JotSpot name goes away, but it would make sense.

Following are a few other gems from Miller's notes:

Will Google Spreadsheets ever have advanced features like pivot tables, macros or offline database integrations? (This was actually my question) Scott said they are constantly trying to find the balance between speed and utility. It will never be a heavy duty analytics program because that would be too heavy and bulky for the average user.

Will Google Apps support video conferencing in addition to Google Talk and Chat? Scott’s answer, “Not yet”. I got the impression from his body language that it’ll come someday, but nothing more was said.