KDE have released version 4.8 of their free and open source software bundle. It provides many new features, improved stability and increased performance. Highlights for Plasma Workspaces include window manager optimizations, and the redesign of power management.

The SugarCRM developers have released a first beta for version 6.0 of their open source customer relationship manager. In addition to several ease-of-use and performance improvements, the preview release features a completely re-designed user interface

This month the KDE Community announced the immediate availability of KDE 4.0. This significant release marks both the end of the long and intensive development cycle leading up to KDE 4.0 and the beginning of the KDE 4 era.

The beta version of Ubuntu 9.10, which appeared last week, brought a number of much-anticipated aesthetic improvements to the desktop.  Here’s a look at the slick new login manager that users can expect when Karmic is officially released at the end of this month.

Enlightenment, also known simply as E, is a stacking window manager for the X Window System which can be used alone or in conjunction with a desktop environment such as GNOME or KDE.

Dolphin was intended to replace Konqueror as the default file manager in KDE 4. The scope of Dolphin was to only provide a compact and easy-to-use file manager, without all the features and uses Konqueror has. And (I think) it succeeded. In the beginning most of the users were reticent regarding this idea, since Konqueror provided anything one could possibly ask from a file manager.

KDE has released the 3rd stable version of Plasma Active, KDE's device-independent user experience. The Plasma Active user interface is touch-friendly and works well across a range of devices. Its Activities function gives users a natural way to organize and access their applications, files and information.

KDE 4.7 releases provide many new features and improved stability and performance. Lots of visual polishing took place with an update to the Oxygen icons, and improved consistency between panel items such as clock and notification areas. The window manager KWin brings a new shadow system and can now run on OpenGL ES supporting hardware, making it better suited for mobile devices.

Plasma Active aims at creating a cross-device user experience for emerging devices such as tablet computers, media centers, smartphones, and more. Plasma Active's mission statement is: Create a desirable user experience encompassing a spectrum of devices