Google Gears churns toward Microsoft

[Squirrel]

The search giant--which has evolved into an advertising company and now an "apps" provider--released software late on Wednesday called Google Gears at its first official Developer Day held in 10 cities worldwide. Gears is a browser extension that will enable people to access their Web applications when working offline. It works on all major browsers and operating systems, and can be used by developers to make any application offline-enabled, not just Google programs.

Not only is Google strengthening its presence in the developer community, it is pleasing many different factions by releasing Gears as open-source software, rather than proprietary. Microsoft has been criticized for locking developers into its Windows operating system and other Microsoft software. Microsoft has also been struggling to figure out how best to respond to the threat that Web-hosted applications pose to its desktop business.

And for consumers and corporations, Google Gears knocks down a perceived barrier in competing with desktop applications. While users of Microsoft applications, such as the popular Office suite, can work in the software and access data stored on their computer at any time, Google's Web-based applications, such as Gmail, require a user to be connected to the Internet. That will change now that Gears has arrived.
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[Archangel]

Pretty cool article!