The Lightning add-on lets users upgrade their Mozilla Thunderbird email client and turn it into a convenient, versatile groupware product.
Today, the email client is a core desktop application used for communication and contact management. Until recently, the popular Thunderbird mail client lacked native calendaring. Mozilla Lightning adds a calendar feature, bringing groupware functionality to Thunderbird. Mozilla also offers the standalone calendar, Sunbird. In contrast to the Thunderbird add-on, Lightning, it works as a self-sufficient and independent application. Because the close ties between the mail client and groupware component offer various benefits, I will focus on Lightning in this article, although many of the options are also supported by Sunbird.
