Several month after Zoho announced its offline version of Writer, Google has cranked its own Gears with Google Docs. Using its browser plugin Google Gears, the company says it's rolling out offline functionality to its online office applications over then next few weeks. Users will be able to tell when their accounts have been upgraded with the new capability when an "offline" link appears at the top of the Google Docs site.
Though both Docs and Gears are still both beta, the move is a salvo in Redmond's direction, taking direct aim at Microsoft's entrenched, proprietary, industry-standard Office productivity software suite. Conversely, Google Gears is an open-source project that any developer can use to build offline capability into web applications.
"Web applications such as Remember the Milk and our own Google Reader already use Gears. Google Docs is just the latest to join the party. We're inviting developers to Google I/O on May 28-29 to see how we did it and learn how they can do the same" said Google representative Jason Freidenfelds.
The offline capability will be limited to word processing documents, though the company plans to add it to spreadsheets and presentations in the future. "We're working to make more web applications and functions work where connections are unavailable (including editing spreadsheets and viewing/editing presentations, and bring offline functionality to other apps). But this gives a taste of the future, when you'll always be able to access the cloud" added Freidenfelds.
You can find out more about the development and watch a video demo on the Official Google Blog.
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