Corel Offers Free Beta of WordPerfect Lightning

Neat idea, wonder if it works...

Published on February 27, 2007 By Zoomba In WinCustomize News

With the release of Microsoft Office 2007 and the radical UI changes brought with the new ribbon interface, it looks like there's an opening for competition in the office productivity space to gain some ground against the Redmond giant. Corel, owners of the WordPerfect suite is jumping into the fray with both feet this week with the release of the beta version of their flagship word processor.

The WordPerfect Lightning beta is free to download and offers a new degree of online services and integration not seen in previous versions of the office suite. It also represents Corel's continued efforts to move their products towards a modular component setup with applications designed to work better in an online environment.

Lightning offers online document storage and retrieval, making it easier for users to collaborate over the Internet. Even if you're a die-hard MS Office fan, since it's freely available, Lightning is worth at least downloading and checking out.

Comments

Hankers

on Feb 27, 2007

Checking it out. Looks like a very handy program. Thanks.

cavalierex

on Feb 27, 2007

Lightning does not include WordPerfect (yet). It is mainly a local editor that allows online storage and retrieval of documents. As freeware, it is better compared to Google's Documents program, except with the added benefit of having a local desktop application for faster and more powerful editing. An online version of the file allows sharing or access on the road.

Lightning will likely remain freeware, but will be incorporated into the WordPerfect office suite such that you can use WordPerfect itself (a very high-powered word processor, in direct competition with Office 2007) as your desktop editor and seamlessly update online versions that can be shared with colleagues or accessed and edited on-the-run from any computer (via a web interface).

It's a good move on WP's part... Makes so much more sense to have a powerful desktop app with web-storage/syncing integration than to have a stripped-down (and slow) web editor. Hopefully Office2007 will follow suit.

bachbeet

on Feb 28, 2007

I've been using WP for years. As far as I'm concerned it is far superior to Office. The new X3 is terrific. Even allows opening pdf docs and editing them.

barsinister

on Feb 28, 2007

I own Office 2007 and I will tell you that even running it is amazing. The new interface is awsome. Microsoft has really out done itself with Office and Vista. stablility is great.

Excalpius

on Feb 28, 2007

Agreed with barsinister. Office 2007, while massively overpriced in today's market, is the first version of Office actually worth buying since Office 97...yes, a decade to get an office version that makes a real difference.

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