As a small company, you probably have employees in remote locations. No doubt, there are many management and communications issues. Yes, it's often the case that things slow down -- or even fights break out.

While e-mail is helpful, it is usually not enough. Rather, it's worth looking at online collaboration tools.

First of all, these tools are usually affordable, with fees based on the number of users or the amount of storage used. Although, some providers may provide a free service.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is not only gunning for AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) in the telecom field (well, maybe), but it is also putting on another assault on an old friend in the software business -- Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT).

Google has had its Google Docs web-based office productivity solution available for a long time now -- but it may be getting serious about directly competing with Microsoft Office, one of ole softie's main cash cows that brings in billions in revenue every single year.

The father of the PDF document, Adobe Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE), is starting to push further into the web-based document creation business. That strategy puts it squarely in the cross-hairs of Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and its excellent Google Docs product, as well as software giant Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), which is set to release a major online component with Office 2010.

Adobe indicated that a fee-based version its new online initiatives would allow businesses to covert all kinds of documents to the de-facto PDF standard, as well as hold online meetings via Acrobat.com.

Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ: GOOG) existing Google Docs web-based productivity product just became quite a bit smarter. Like it or not, that product just became a front-and-center competitor to Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Office software by becoming available to use without an internet connection.

Sounds like a minor event, but Microsoft's Office productivity software suite brings in billions of dollars in revenue per quarter. It's one of the company's most lucrative software packages, and although there have been freely available alternatives for quite some time, Microsoft Office still reigns supreme for word processing and spreadsheets. One of Google's big problems with most of its products centers around offline access. Customers need to have an active internet connection to work with virtually all of its web-based products.

Will Google's word processing and spreadsheet programs start taking a larger bite out of Microsoft's Office by offering workable access without an internet connection? For some customers, yes. Tyler Dikman with Cooltronics says this move "gives Google a larger pool of users to go after with more potential to increase their market share. And it sends a wake up call to Microsoft that Google Docs is not some experiment. This is something Google is investing a lot of time and money to make work."

This may seem like a small step from Google Docs, but it's aimed squarely at Microsoft. Whether Google can make inroads into the office software productivity market remains to be seen. However, its efforts just took a large leap.

With ad-supported software all the rage these days, why has Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) not gone down the path of free software supported by advertisers pocketbooks instead of customer subscription payments? Microsoft's Office 2007 software package is very nice, but quite costly and there's not a lot of incentive for most people to upgrade from earlier versions to see only incremental features for their own specific use. Yet, Office 2007 is selling well (quite well), as the division responsible for selling it saw more than $1 billion more in revenue in its latest quarter from the year-ago period.

Do customers really want to take their spreadsheets, documents and other office items onto the web? Google (NASDAQ: GOOG)'s Docs & Spreadsheets think so, and it's been written about extensively here in the past. Still, customers are paying hand over fist for Microsoft's Office package, which tells the market that there are two things happening.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) loves to say that its Google Docs & Spreadsheets online office and productivity collaboration tools pose little to no threat to Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT). Just don't tell that to the designers and planners of Google's latest Google Docs offering. Some of the newer features of Google Docs from the Mountain View, Ca. company mimic Microsoft Office in important ways.

Are there folders now to organize documents just like in Windows? Yes. How about keyboard shortcuts? You bet. And directional justification for data contained in spreadsheet cells? Check. These new features may sound insignificant, but each one encroaches on what Microsoft Office has had for years with its pricey installed software packages. By contrast, Google Docs is completely free, is web-based and required no software beyond a current web browser (like Microsoft's own Internet Explorer or Mozilla's Firefox).

Add in the capability of creating charts for online spreadsheets and having revision histories available for any document you create -- all automatically -- and you can see Google Docs and Spreadsheets morphing into a miniature version of Microsoft Office. Now, it's not that Microsoft's Office package is going to feel threatened any time soon since there's still a large gap there, but every new feature Google introduces treads more and more onto Microsoft's territory. So the Google-Microsoft plot thickens . . .

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) continues to subtly press its office productivity software into the hands of the masses, consumers and businesses. And yet, the company continues to say it is not targeting, as a whole, Microsoft's Office franchise, which requires a decent chunk of cash to purchase as well as installation on a PC (or network) to function.

Google's Gmail (email), Calendar (scheduling), Docs (word precessing) and Spreadsheet (calculations) require nothing but a web browser and an internet connection, while giving many "light" users the same capabilities as the Microsoft Office package. All for free. Will Google's services remain free? Who knows. One thing is clear -- it's incredibly difficult to give something away for free, then start charging for it in the future.

Google is now packing its services for internet service providers (ISPs) and other web-based portals what have millions of customers as a way to get that package of productivity software out into the hands of even more users. Its Google Apps Partner Edition packages all of the above-mentioned applications and more to give Google internet partners a complete bevy of web-based applications they can offer customers as a value-added service. Google even offers a pay edition ("Premier") that promises guaranteed availability and more email storage than its free editions. Will customers pay for the upgrade? These efforts are icebreakers for Google in seeing if it can create a revenue model off service subscriptions and outside advertising.

That famous title line was uttered by none other than former Sun CEO Scott McNealy, and it's being carried out further by current CEO Jonathan Schwartz (see his blog here). At the Office 2.0 conference this week in San Francisco, it appears that many believe the days of locally-installed Office productivity apps like Microsoft Office are coming to a close. McNealy was way ahead of his time in making that famous statement that went on to become Sun's corporate tagline, and for his part, much of that tagline is coming true these days with high-speed Internet connections everywhere.

Indeed, Microsoft is pushing hard to integrate its Office suite into "Office Live", which at some point int he future needs to probably replace that bulky retail box that comes with Microsoft Office when you buy it. So, does Microsoft see Office apps living entirely on the web as well? In some form, I think it does.

There will, however, always be a need to have a locally-installed Office productivity suite installed on millions of computers, unless Internet access is ubiquitous as the air we all breathe. I'm not sure about you, but there are times when, gasp, I actually do not have Internet access, but still need to get work done. There's a major scratch.

Are we close to "Web 2.0" of everything you use on a daily basis being "webified"? That will eventually happen, but as I stated above, you can't just port every single thing to a web browser and expect the globe to start using just a web browser for everything, no matter how heavily Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) thinks this is going to happen. While many millions of customers will be easily wanting to just use a web browser to get most of their work done, that backup option will always need to be there for the future, I see.