Google recognizes that offline capabilities are still critical in today’s business world. Although broadband connectivity is becoming more ubiquitous, there are still scenarios where users need to be offline (e.g., airplanes). Google has released Google Gears, an industry standard and open-source toolkit to offline-enable Web 2.0, browser-based applications. Gmail can be used offline in popular client applications such as Outlook, Thunderbird, and Mac Mail through the use of POP3 or IMAP.

Similarly, Google Calendar is available offline in any client application that supports the standard iCal format (e.g., Outlook, iCal, etc.). Google Docs supports export to and import from all popular desktop file formats including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, HTML, OpenOffice, CSV, TXT, and many more. We’ve received many requests for more offline capability and are looking into ways to enable this.