Maybe it's because with Google Docs you don't get to use Word or Excel, and to anyone who's scared of anything that's not word or Excel that's hard.

Non-technical people don't seem to get to the step of generalising what they know about using computers, i.e. Word->word processor and Excel->spreadsheet, so going to something new like Google docs isn't like "oh this is an online word processor like Word" but instead go "this isn't Word OH MY GOD WHAT DO I DO?"

I've experienced that very limitation from people when it comes to online document editing and maintenance. However, my experience with how those kinds of people use Sharepoint is still compatible with Googledocs: create a document with Word or Excel, then upload it into shared storage where the document goes to die because they never edit or use the document again. Google docs supports this workflow, uploading a Microsoft Office document which gets converted. Now that I think about it, can you upload a document to replace the one that is currently there in GD? I'll have to test that. That would negate the I-can-only-learn-one-thing-and-that-one-thing-was-microsoft-office mentality.

True, but with Google Docs the uploading step is extra; you can open files and save them right inside the file open/save dialogs in Word and Excel if Sharepoint's setup properly.

If something could map say a "My Google Docs" folder under My Documents it would be the same; so you can just go into Word and open a file up for editing.

Personally I'd rather just open my browser, but hey I've used several word processors as well :P