• The Wall Street Journal, Thursday, February 22, 2007 11 AM

Google is moving farther into Microsoft territory, enhancing its rudimentary Web-based communication services by combining its email, chat and calendar services. The company is specifically targeting the corporate crowd by offering the applications program, which includes bigger email storage and more support for companies' technology staff -- for the low-cost price of $50 per user per year.

Google says it plans to include its other services in the package, too, like its Blogger tool for creating Web logs and possibly integrating newer tools like Google Docs & Spreadsheets.

Google has long denied that it wishes to go head-to-head with Microsoft in its core area of hosted software and technology-support services. A huge chunk of Microsoft's revenue from such applications comes from the enterprise level. Indeed Google CEO Eric Schmidt said he discouraged that kind of "chatter" as the worlds of offline and Web-based application services "will coexist for a while." Following Thursday's announcement with its cut-rate prices, it would be hard to argue that Google isn't after a chunk of a Microsoft-dominated market.

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