Salesforce's next big bet is making apps run 'Lightning'-fast

Salesforce is using its tremendous Dreamforce conference in San Francisco this week to push its "Lightning" initiative hard.

Lightning is such a big deal for Salesforce, in fact, that company co-founder Parker Harris - normally known for his aversion to the spotlight - dressed up in a superhero onesie to become "Lightning Man" during a keynote session in front of Dreamforce's 170,000 attendees.

Jokes aside, what is "Lightning?" And why does Salesforce care so much?

The key is in the name. Salesforce Lightning is the company's product line-wide initiative to create better, more reliable, smoother apps, while dragging its stable of 2.3 million-plus Salesforce developers right along with it.

Salesforce Lightning isn't new: It introduced the concept at last year's installment of the Dreamforce event with "Lightning Components," a set of pre-made components to help developers rapidly and easily build new apps that integrate customers' existing Salesforce data.

There's also the Salesforce Lightning App Builder, which opens up the platform to less experienced developers by making it possible to visually "assemble" an application from those Lightning Components, choosing which data to integrate where with a simple click-and-drag.

Since then, Salesforce upped the ante with the announcement of the Lightning Experience, a totally new interface for its flagship CRM product that finally makes it look like something developed this decade.

It also released the Lightning Design System, a set of standards and tools for developers to help them bring their new and existing apps right into line with Salesforce's new look.

And now that it's had a year since the last Dreamforce to mature, Salesforce thinks it's ready for prime time: The show floor is littered with Salesforce vendors touting signs that boast that they've updated their apps' interface to be "Lightning Ready."

In short, Salesforce wants to make it easier than ever to build good-looking, responsive apps on top of its platform - lightning fast.