Cute but astute: the new minor version of OpenOffice can do more than ever, such as cast shadows, position chart axes and provide structured conversations through comments.

AVG Technologies has released a new version of its virus scanner for Linux as AVG 8.5. Biggest features are its malware protection, improved virus filter and on-access scanner based on the RedirFS filesystem.

A recent test shows that the promised Open Document Format (ODF) compatibility of Microsoft Office Service Pack 2 is far from it. At least table calculations in Excel SP2 demonstrate big problems when converting ODF values.

The Moonlight Project has been working on an open source implementation of Microsoft's Silverlight technology. Now they have released the first preview of Moonlight 2.0, incorporating some Silverlight 3.0 features.

A widget has been included in KDE 4.3 as the first implementation of the „Social Desktop“ which allows the user to view other KDE users in his or her city or region.

The new version of the X2go terminal server, code-named Uthörn, is particularly Debian 5.0-compliant. Print requests result in files compressed to about 10% before being sent to the client, and the terminal server now supports a third sound architecture through PulseAudio.

The DVD authoring software has been released in the new 1.8.0 version that promises to keep complex DVD menus under control.

Two statistics for April show that Linux clients have grown to a market share of one to two percent. Both see Linux as gradually gaining ground,
while Microsoft still maintains its quasi monopoly.