Google Gears
Google is going full tilt at breaking into the software market. The company has already been involved in online applications and now it wants to get into offline as well. An announcement was made today about an open source project called “Google Gears”. The Business Wire says:
Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) today announced at Google Developer Day 2007 that it is providing developers with Google Gearsâ„¢, an open source technology for creating offline web applications. This new browser extension is being made available in its early stages so that everyone can test its capabilities and limitations and help improve upon it. The long-term hope is that Google Gears can help the industry as a whole move toward a single standard for offline capabilities that all developers can use.
Google Gears marks an important step in the evolution of web applications because it addresses a major user concern: availability of data and applications when there’s no Internet connection available, or when a connection is slow or unreliable. As application developers and users alike want to do more on the web—whether it’s email or CRM or photo editing—enhancements that make the browser environment itself more powerful are increasingly important.
At ZDNet, Larry Berlind comments on the implications for Microsoft and others:
But with today’s launch of Google Gears — an open source technology designed to make the offline problem a problem of the past — Google is clearly taking a giant step towards leveling the playing field between locally-run (desktop) and Web-based applications. Provided Google’s proverbial “Office 2.0″ applications are eventually enabled for the capability (they’re not right now), the complexion of the Office marketplace (and the application marketplace in general) is poised for a sea change. Given Google’s approach to application delivery and business models, companies such as Microsoft may have their hands forced in terms of reconsidering everything from the architecture behind their existing solutions portfolios to the licensing costs for those solutions.
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