Google Docs has become more than just a novelty for the anti-Microsoft crowd, giving enterprises of all sizes an opportunity to create, edit and share a wide variety of documents in a very cheap and easy fashion.
But as Datamation reports, as enterprises become more and more comfortable using Google’s collaboration applications, they need the cloud-based access and control features provided by most on-premise applications to ensure data can and will be protected regardless of how it’s generated or distributed.
Google’s tweaks to Docs include adding a “private” setting that allows only invited individuals or groups to see and share various documents and spreadsheets. Other settings allow IT administrators to allow greater access to specified groups—or sometimes even everyone in the organization—with ease and greater visibility.
The new security features include settings that allow users to see the full list of authorized editors and viewers for a particular document. Editors now appear next to every file in the list of Google Docs files and next to the title within each Google doc.
Google has added several new settings to its Google Docs online document creation and editing software designed to make it easier to control the distribution of files to the right people in an organization or group.
Sharing documents has always been a signature feature of the cloud-based Docs service, which ties in well with the growing interest in deploying collaboration technologies in enterprises.
But while Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) has made significant strides in attracting large companies and organizations to its applications, security and privacy concerns related to cloud-based or software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications remains.