Google is now launching an offline GMail version that runs like an app inside the Chrome web browser. This is exactly what I have been looking for and I find less and less reason to hold on to my Thunderbird installation.

This is also true for the Google Calendar application, same here, they have used the same technology as on the android platform to create this and sure enough, it looks very similar.

Since the Chrome browser has a very capable built-in database to handle things like that, the off line applications has been something I have looked forward to for a long time.

Excellent!