Google is introducing an online business software package designed to prepare it easier for society in the same organization to share documents and knowledge. The free “Team Edition” software, scheduled to debut Thursday, represents the Net search leader’s latest attempt to attract more users to free applications, which poses a potential threat to rival Microsoft Corp.’s highly profitable word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and calendar programs. More than 500,000 businesses

have signed up to use Google’s applications, according to figures to be released Thursday by the Mountain View-based company.

Some businesses pay $50 additional per user for a souped-up version of the applications, but the fees so far history for only a sliver of Google’s $16.6 billion in annual revenue. Google last year collected $181 million for software sales and other services besides online advertising.

Orginal post by