This is huge news in so many ways…

Google Code Blog: Power up your mobile web applications

Google Code: Google Gears on Mobile Devices

Google Gears is an API for creating rich web applications and provides the ability for taking those rich web applications offline. Google Gears on Mobile Devices supports Windows Mobile 5 and 6. A quick read of their documentation shows that it apparently supports both the Pocket PC (Classic/Professional) and Smartphone (Standard).
Zoho (quickly becoming my favorite Web 2.0 service) has already announced: Zoho Writer Extends Mobile Support, Adds Offline Capability for Windows Mobile Using Google Gears. This release only allows viewing documents, but they are promising editing in the future. But, the big news is that their use of Google Gears for Windows Mobile means that you can take the online Zoho Writer documents with you offline (e.g., when you are on a plane or otherwise unable to get on the Internet). I’m planning on taking this feature for a spin soon and will report back here.

Ironically, it looks like Google is Microsoft’s best friend in regard to saving their Windows Mobile platform from being obsolete as a web access device (compared to the Apple iPhone). Up until this announcement I had written off Windows Mobile as an obsolete web access device. Google Gears for Mobile Devices changes everything.