Moving Web-Based Software Offline - New York Times

Millions of people enjoy free Web-based software programs that deliver
e-mail, news and many other services. But those programs are available
to users only when they are online.

Now Google
is hoping to help make many of those programs, among them its own free
Web applications like Gmail and Docs and Spreadsheets, available
offline, say when a user is on an airplane. In doing so, Google will
more openly challenge Microsoft and its office productivity tools, like Excel and Word, which users must buy for hundreds of dollars.

That
rivalry was heightened Wednesday when Google released a set of tools to
software programmers, which it calls Google Gears, that addresses what
is perhaps the single most critical shortcoming of Web-based software.
The tools can be used by all programmers, whether they work for Google
or not, to enhance their own Web-based programs for offline use. The
company is making the technology available in an open-source model, so
programmers can use it free, test its abilities and extend them as
necessary to fit their needs.