It was merely a week ago when Hotmail co-founder Sabeer Bhatia introduced the new "Live Documents" productivity suite touting its online-offline functionality as one of the key selling points. Now, browser-based word processor Zoho Writer has been updated to offer offline functionality as well.
The updated Zoho Writer now enables users to save a document and modify it in offline mode. Once edited, users can then go back online and synchronize the offline version with the online one. The offline functionality has been added using Google Gears, an open source browser extension that enables web applications to use JavaScript APIs to allow offline working. Much like Google Docs and Live Documents, Zoho Writer also allows multiple users to work on an online document at the same time.
The company also said that it plans to make the offline editing functionality available for other applications in the Zoho Office Suite, which includes tools for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, note-taking, wikis, CRM and other applications.