Earlier today Zoho announced the addition of an “offline mode” to Zoho Writer. What’s particularly interesting about this announcement is that they did it via Google Gears, so they beat Google itself to an offline offering — with their own product!
However…
Not really. The thing to keep in mind here is that while this new functionality is (to me) very fascinating and potentially really useful; it is also read-only. The announcement tells us that editing features are coming in future weeks.
So the race really isn’t won yet, is it? Zoho won the first heat, but we still have the main event to come: Who’s going to have a functional online/offline word processor and spreadsheet first: Zoho or Google Docs & Spreadsheets? (ok, and presentation software would be nice)
Don’t get me wrong, I think this is brilliant stuff as a “preview”, but I’m just not ready to get excited until I can edit offline — or create new documents offline.
Thoughts?
As a side note, take a look at my Thoughts On Google Gears post from the end of June. I think I’m still on board with all of my thoughts there — especially my “What’s Missing” section.
Possibly Related posts:
August 21st, 2007 
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I almost got really excited, but looks like I’ll have to wait a bit longer to get exactly what I want (much like the iPhone).
Offline Editing certainly is coming next. As this is a new initialtive, we decided to take baby steps. You’ll hear back from us reg editing support soon.
Looks like offline AJAX apps are the latest thing. My favorite online password safe recently released a offline mode. Seen clipperz.com yet? Simply amazing.
http://tinyurl.com/37k36v
@Raju – Always good to see you drop by. I bet there’s going to be a lot of “buzz” when the editing stuff comes out!
@Sam – soon, I hope…
@Peter – I’ve not seen clipperz yet, but I’m intrigued. I’ve been using Password Safe on my USB key for the past year or so and generally been happy. I periodically back it up to my box.net account, just in case I forget my USB key.
[...] months ago, the Zoho folks announced an offline mode for Zoho Writer. While nifty and all, it was essentially read-only and not quite as useful as I [...]