On the Windows platform many business users use Outlook to track appointments, ‘to do’ items and to remind them of their next meeting. However, more than one person attends a meeting. In the knowledge that other users might not be using Microsoft Outlook, we don’t always utilise the option to send an invite to the other attendees.

With the rise of Mozilla Thunderbird, the only element missing from this email application was the facility to track calendar items and organise meetings.

The Lightning Project is a calendar project for Thunderbird that enables you to do the above and, better still, accept and utilise meeting invitations sent to you from Outlook. As it also supports open standards, such as CalDAV, you’ll also find that you can export/import calendar items from Apple’s iCal and use those items within Lightning.

Lightning also supports device synchronisation, so you’re able to keep up-to-date with your meetings and ‘to do’ items, through your mobile device (iPod, mobile etc).

Note that Lightning is designed around the Sunbird Project which has also been updated. The download here is for the Windows version of Thunderbird.