Google is furthering the migration of pretty much everything to the cloud by offering offline Google Docs support, which will be powered by Google Gears. Effectively, the applications you use will have data stored locally until you get back in range of your Wi-Fi hotspot, where updating will then occur seamlessly. The functionality will start to roll out in the coming week, with some users being granted immediate access.

Everything will still function via your web browser, meaning you won't have to load up additional applications to take advantage of the offline / online goodness. Eager to share some of the limelight, Zoho has also begun to offer the very same feature. I've always preferred Zoho's online productivity suite, but the speed has frequently been an issue. I very much doubt the planned offline support will ease the problem.

Mr T isn't happy, because having to log on to use Google Docs is one of the last excuses he has to stay on the ground and outta the damn plane. T just hopes Hannibal doesn't find out about this. [Google Docs Blog]