Search engine provider Google has announced the release of its Google Gears service on mobile phones. Google Gears offers people offline access to services that are normally only available online.
Initially, the mobile service will be available for Internet Explorer on Windows Mobile 5 and 6 and it is set to eventually expand to other mobile browsers.
"We are very excited by the potential here. We expect mobile apps built using Google Gears to usher in a new trend in mobile application development," stated software engineer Chris Prince in a company blog.
He went on to state: "The mission of Gears is to extend the capabilities of web browsers. It is clear to us that mobile browsers can benefit just as much as desktop ones. By adding features to mobile browsers, it becomes possible to deploy an increasing number of mobile applications as web apps."
To begin with, a number of partners, such as Buxfer and Zoho, will introduce mobile applications that can run on Pocket Internet Explorer.
For example, Zoho Writer will now be available for Windows Mobile 6 and will have an offline capability.
According to TechCrunch, Google will also introduce a Gears version of Google Docs in the near future, along with Gmail and Google Calendar.
The blog adds: "This announcement also means that it's game time for Adobe and Microsoft. They either need to come out with mobile versions of AIR and Silverlight or risk being left in the dust."
