Less than a year since it was launched, Google Gears is now available for the mobile phones. Yesterday, the web search giant announced that its Google Gears, an open source technology for creating offline web applications is now available on Windows Mobile.

“Today we're announcing the launch of Google Gears for mobile, a mobile browser extension for creating rich web applications for mobile devices. The first version is now available for Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Mobile 5 and 6. It's a fully functional port of Google Gears v0.2 that can be used to develop offline capability into your mobile web applications,” wrote Charles Wiles, Product Manager, Google Mobile Team on Google’s Code Blog.

Also Wiles said that Google plans to unveil a version of Google Gears for Android and other mobile platforms.

Thanks to the Google Gears, the users will be able to access their favorite mobile applications even if they are working offline. Of course, Google Gears should be already integrated into these applications.

Charles Wiles has posted on Google Mobile Blog a full explanation of what Google Gears means for the users.

“Take Zoho and Buxfer, for example: Zoho is a powerful suite of web-based productivity applications, while Buxfer is an innovative personal finance web application that helps you track your money. With Google Gears for mobile integrated into mobile Zoho and Buxfer, you can now access these web applications even when your phone is disconnected from the mobile web. Stuck on a plane? No problem — you can still read your docs on your mobile with Zoho Writer Mobile offline,” he wrote.

When a mobile user will access the sites of Zoho or Buxfer, he will be prompted to download and install Google Gears for mobile.

On the other hand with Zoho Writer running on IE Mobile, Zoho expands the mobility of Zoho applications beyond the iPhone, which the company supports through iZoho. Like iZoho, the applications available under IE Mobile will eventually grow to include other Zoho applications.

“Mobile phones are a road warrior's best friend when working away from the office,” said Raju Vegesna, Zoho evangelist. “This is the primary reason why mobile support continues to be a top priority for Zoho. Today's news announcing Google Gears on mobile devices will help us offer online and offline access to mobile applications going forward.” 

Google Gears was launched last year in May at Google Developer Day and amongst the backers of the system there are companies such as Adobe Systems Inc., Mozilla Corp. and Opera Software ASA.