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No one has ever accused the folks at Google of being dumb. And, despite their stock (along with nearly every other firm’s stock) tanking lately, the Googlelonions are still a smart bunch. On Tuesday, they provide Google Gears for Windows Mobile. This sure looks like a testing ground for preparing people for working with Google’s Android based phones later this year. Train up those Windows Mobile users so they can defect easily later. Smart. On Wednesday, they provide a tool to sync Google Calendar with Microsoft Outlook. Provide an easy way to move the all important calendar data from Windows to the Googlesphere. Brilliant. Now, we just need a simple mechanism to move Contacts data from Outlook to Google and the road to Android will be nearly finished. Very very smart.

I wonder if Microsoft is paying attention to any of this. Or, are they too focused on Yahoo!?

I installed Google Gears for Windows Mobile today and tried out the Gears-enabled Zoho Writer on a Windows Mobile 6 Professional Edition (an HTC TyTn) device. The result is not perfect but is far far ahead of what anyone else (including Google and Microsoft) have available for Windows Mobile.

After installing Google Gears Mobile, I went to…

mobile.zoho.com

…and logged into my Zoho account. It showed my five most recently edited Zoho Writer documents. I clicked the Go Offline link and watched the documents download relatively quickly over a WiFi connection. Taking the TyTn completely offline (no WiFi, no cell data), I used Internet Explorer to navigate between the five documents very quickly. No editing is possible yet. So, it is all read-only. This is a great start though and I’m looking forward to watching both Google Gears Mobile and Zoho create more great connected/disconnected web applications to use on the go.

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.

I thought this Daylight Savings issue was fixed in last year’s patch. Guess not. Here are the links for the CAB file download as well as the desktop (setup.msi) installer version.

Update for Windows Mobile for PC (KB949168) (SETUP.MSI)

Update for Windows Mobile for PC (KB949168) (WMDST2008-1.CAB)

FYI: I just installed the CAB file installer version on my Dash. It restarted my smartphone without even giving a warning that it was about to do so.