The "Etelos Platform Suite" is squarely aimed at Enterprise. Etelos Founder and CEO Danny Kolke said in the announcement that "our larger partners want the opportunity to have their own marketplaces and tools to manage distribution channels." He also noted that large partners now have applications "that they need to move to the web for implementation and scalability."

This is precisely what IBM recently told us, when explaining why Big Blue is now making serious moves in the browser. IBM told us that their customers don't want to do installs anymore, that they want the rich experience that desktop apps have traditionally provided - but they want to have it in the browser. IBM is the biggest software services company in the world for enterprises, so if they are moving applications to the browser - it's clearly what most big enterprises want these days. Therefore we think this is a very smart move by Etelos, one that is sure to find good demand from enterprises.

Although the terminology is a bit confusing (over-use of the words 'platform' and 'SaaS', for a start), it's worth breaking down what makes up the Etelos Platform Suite. According to Etelos, it consists of four key products:

• SaaS Application Platform: Technology that enables traditional ("shrink-wrapped") software to be distributed as Software as a Service.
• SaaS Marketplace Platform: Easily managed Marketplace that integrates licensing, billing and account management that is designed for Web app distribution.
• SaaS Distribution Platform: Turnkey Marketplace with a company's products or services integrated into it.
• SaaS Syndication Platform: Application developers can publish their app via a network of distributors.

We will continue to track what innovative startups like Etelos, and bigcos like IBM, are doing in the Web Office space. See ReadWriteWeb's Enterprise channel for more news and analysis on these trends.

From apps developed natively for the Etelos marketplace to enterprise installs of Google Apps, MediaWiki and WordPress - the company expects a wide range of apps to make use of the offline functionality.

The Etelos offering is just the latest from a company that offers primarily enterprise app developers a wide range of services. The idea behind Etelos is that the company takes care of everything from billing to customer management, allowing developers to make and sell great apps. Now those apps will be able to live offline, one more good reason to offer apps through the platform.

App account administrators (on the customer side) will be able to set varying permission levels to determine which users can access what information for syncing offline.

For the immediate future, at least, when in-flight wifi still seems a ways off and connectivity in general isn't what it ought to be - this sounds like a good idea. Offline access and later syncing is something that sounds uninspiring in theory but is very exciting when you're using it. Google Gears offers another level of emotional experience when you get to feel disappointment over the shaky quality of syncing once back online. There's certainly room for competition in the world of offline access to web apps.