My Errant Mind

Lightning, a new software suite by Corel, has been released for those who looking for a better way to be productive on the go. It is around 20 MB in size and is meant to reside on your USB drive. It fully integrates with other Corel products and allows you to work in a new way.

How so?

What Makes Lightning Powerful?

It allows you to collect news, information, graphics, and ideas and import it into the Notes application. There is also a Reader application which allows you to view, print and save documents.You can then organize your data in a ‘tree’ data structure, with arrangeable folders.

The main point, however, is the ability to collaborate effectively. You can sign up for an online account and store your documents there. You can email your documents to others and they can fire up Lightning and edit them as well.

I originally discovered Lightning on the EverythingUSB.com website. I decided to download it and take it out for a spin.

And this little application suite delivers in many areas. After installing it, I notice there is even a cute little print server executable installed on my SanDisk Cruzer Mini. It also integrates with Outlook quite nicely. I’m not quite sure how it will work out with Thunderbird, but as soon as I get back to my own PC, I will find out.

You can create a note, and when you are done, click on an icon at the bottom of the document and fire it off as an email. It is really a great little application suite. The idea is sound, rather.

But, Like All Things Corel…

What is not sound, is Corel’s implementation of it. I will confess that I have never liked any Corel software except Corel Linux when it first came out many years ago. They acquired Paint Shop Pro from JASC and so I have been looking for a new graphics editor ever since (I dislike Photoshop). They have made Lightning less than what it could be.

The Ad Space And Screen Real-Estate Heist

The obvious thing that will kill it, is the huge amount of screen real estate eaten up by an advertising window at the bottom of the application. Yes, you heard that right. Corel wants to force-feed you ads. On top of that, there are no text labels for any of the buttons in the application. You will spend some time getting used to it and hovering your mouse over them to figure out what does what.

If Corel added text labels and got rid of the ad space, they would have a great application on their hands. But, if you have ever been to Corel’s website, you will know that they are prone to hitting you over the head with graphic and advertising sledgehammers. They still use graphical buttons for navigation interfaces and in general have one of the most unfriendly and inaccessible websites of any major software company.

Online Storage Not Worth The Trouble

I have no doubt that the same poor product management and marketing will hamper Lightning as it has everything else in their product line. I would love to use Lightning. I think with a larger online storage space and the ability to choose the location your storage for Notes, it would be a better option than having to go with a proprietary service.

I would much rather be able to create my own space and send notes there that others could access and download as I allowed. This is another attempt to micro-manage an application and make it work the way Corel wants it to work instead of the way you the end-user wants it to work.

Just who is Joyent anyway? That is the company that will host your stored information, after all. They offer some hosted collaboration suite and web services hosting. Cute cartoons characters are all over the site and their pitch sounds like a lot of smoke and mirrors. To a non-techy sort of person which they appear to make their pitch to, it almost sounds like you can save $250k and get your own private jet.

Sadly, It Will Not Replace My Existing Applications

I would gladly have paid for the Lightning suite if it weren’t broken in critical areas, the main one being control. Corel just does not seem to get the entire concept of software being for the end-user and not their marketing department.

In the end, this is what will kill it off. It may work for you, but for me, Lightning was just like its namesake—a quick flash. And now, the storm has passed.

I’ll stick with my copy of Treepad and the other cool applications I mentioned in my post, USB To Go: Applications For Your Portable Drive. They let me do what I want, how I want, and I don’t get force-fed ads and give up screen real-estate to a corporation I wouldn’t trust to market a lemonade stand for me.

But, in fairness, Lightning is a Beta. Maybe it will change for the better, but I’m not holding my breath. You probably shouldn’t either.