Google Docs Goes Offline, Ready For Office Battle

Boston (dbTechno) - Google made the announcement on Monday that they are bringing their highly-popular Google Docs web office suite offline. The new offline support will allow users to edit files without internet access, putting it in direct competition with Microsoft Office.

The new offline support for Google Docs will be powered by the Google Gears API.

The new offline support for Google Docs will allow developers to store applicationd ata offline, and then sync it back up later when users are online again.

Starting today, some Google Docs users will be able to edit their word processing documents offline.

Offline access has been one of the final missing pieces of Google Docs. With this now being added in though, they are now in direct competition with Microsoft Office.

The big difference will likely be the price point, as Google Docs is free, compared to the cost of MS Office, which is at hundreds of dollars for some.

Google Docs will expand to feature full offline support eventually, with presentation and spreadsheet applications working as well.