I just downloaded “Google Gears, an open source browser extension that adds offline functionality directly to the browser.” Ate the initial synchronisation which takes a few seconds if you have a lot of docs, the offline use of Google Docs is exactly the same as online, with the exception that data is stored locally and updated the next time you log into Google Docs. Working well for me at the moment but I wonder how it will deal with versioning between documents with multiple owners making offline changes and then syncing.

How much longer will we need separate word-processing, spreadsheet, presentation applications on our computers rather than use the functionality offered by browser extensions?