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The technology, called Google Gears, would allow users of PCs, phones and other devices to manipulate web services such as email, online calendars or news readers whether online, intermittently connected to the web or completely offline.

By bridging the gulf between new web services and the older world of desktop software, where any data changes are stored locally on users' machines, Google is pushing the web into whole new spheres of activity and posing a challenge to rival Microsoft, leader in the desktop software era.

'The Web is great but it doesn't work very well when you don't have a Web connection,' Jeff Huber, Google's vice president of engineering, said in an interview. 'Gears addresses a functional gap on the Web.'

Google plans to make the Gears technology available for free as 'open source' software, meaning other developers are free to use and enhance the software in their own products.

Gears promises to expand the usage of scores of Google products and services, as well as thousands of programs from independent software makers, by making them more accessible at previously inconvenient times and places.

The technology also allows developers to build internet search and indexing of web pages into their own software applications, Huber said.

Many such products will

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be able to make limited searches offline, since they will have downloaded data automatically when connected. Google's full web search functions would return once the user reconnects to the internet.

Early partners who will use Gears in their products include Adobe, maker of Flash and Acrobat, as well as new Apollo tools that already work online and offline.

Other organisations working with Google are Norway's Opera Software, maker of a web browser popular with mobile phone users, and Mozilla Firefox.

Shift away from desktop

Analysts said Google's move capitalises on a growing trend over the past couple of years for web applications to behave as responsively as desktop software.

Microsoft already offers technologies like Groove, which allows users to work offline, then synchronise changes when connected later. But the software giant has been reluctant to make existing products work both online and offline.

Technologies such as AJAX, Adobe's Flash or Microsoft's new Silverlight technology have made this increasingly possible.

'Now the Web is becoming so good that there is less and less of a reason to build software that just runs on desktop computers,' said Gartner analyst David Smith. 'In the past, developers had to make some pretty clear trade-offs between the Web and software for desktops.'

Google Gears promises to help further close the gap for software developers across the industry. 'This is a very big step, but I would say it is an obvious step,' Huber said.

The first Google product to feature Gears will be Google Reader, which allows consumers automatically to track updates to hundreds of websites. Users could connect temporarily for updates, then go offline and read up on recent Web news.

'We expect this to be extended to other Google applications over time,' Huber said, without setting any timeframes.