Cloud service provider Zoho announced that its e-mail service is exiting private beta today and is now publicly available. Interestingly, Zoho uses Google's own Gears technology to take Zoho Mail offline.

Zoho has been providing cloud-based productivity tools for quite some time, and, like Google, lets people access applications such as document creators and spreadsheets from any Web-enabled PC. Zoho had been holding back on offering a real competitor to Google's Gmail, however.

Today, that changes. Zoho Mail debuted, and Raju Vegesna, Zoho evangelist, said, "Zoho Mail is an important application for Zoho as it plays a pivotal role in the evolution of our productivity, collaboration, and business applications. For an application like Mail, offline and mobile support are key. We wanted to offer these features right out of the gate."

Zoho Mail offers hierarchical folders and labels, serial and conversational e-mail listings, unlimited storage, Zoho chat, Zoho productivity suite, and Zoho Business.

What's perhaps most interesting, though, is that Zoho borrows from Google to compete with Google.

From the press release, "Zoho relies on Google Gears to make Zoho Mail available offline, so users need Gears installed locally to enable offline functionality using Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari Web browsers. When users click the 'setup offline' link, they will be prompted to install Gears if it is not detected on the local machine."

If you can't beat 'em, take their technology?

Zoho Mail also is available in mobile form, and Zoho has created an iPhone-compatible version of its interface.

Feel free to check out Zoho Mail.