Google Gears

Google is now on the path to making its Web-based apps available offline.

Google Gears is an open source browser extension that lets developers create web applications that can run offline. For now, it consists components called LocalServer, Database and WorkerPool.

Only the Google Reader will be made for offline use for now. However, as time goes on, other useful applications such as Docs and Spreadsheets, Calendar and Gmail will be put for offline use.
With the talk about a Google Presentation Software (see my previous post), the bringing of these applications offline could post a serious competition to Microsoft in the future.

For interested developers, take a look at Google Gears Developer Website: http://code.google.com/apis/gears/index.html

Google Gears (Beta) can be found at: http://tools.google.com/gears/