Google is rolling out a much-awaited feature for its hosted applications: the ability for people to use them even when they aren’t connected to the Internet.
Google isn’t the only provider of productivity and collaboration software to provide offline access for its applications. Players in this market like Zoho and Yahoo’s Zimbra also have offline capabilities in their suites.
The first application to get this offline access will be the word processor, said Ken Norton, Google Docs product manager. “The design goal is to create a seamless experience, with or without an Internet connection,” he said.
Over the next three weeks or so, Google will turn on the feature for all word processor users, giving them the ability to view and edit documents while offline. During the same time period, Google Docs’ spreadsheet will gain offline ability for viewing, but not editing, documents.
Google Docs’ third component, an application to make slide presentations, will remain for now without offline access. However, Google has plans to extend the offline access to it and to other hosted services in the Google Apps suite, of which Docs is part. Apps also includes Gmail, Calendar, Talk and others.
“Offline access of [hosted] apps is the next step in making the Web as a whole a lot more reliable,” Norton said.
source:read
