Ximian, one of the most influential companies in the GNOME community and publishers of an enhanced version of the same desktop, announced Ximian Desktop 2, also known simply as “XD2” today. XD2 is the first offering from Ximian to be based on GNOME2, which was released last June.
Among the new features offered in this release are improved printing capabilities and a new version of the Microsoft Outlook replacement “Evolution.” The feature most likely to draw interest, however, is OpenOffice.org Ximian Edition, which is a modified version of the OpenOffice.org office suite meant to tie in better with the Ximian Desktop interface.
According to Uwe Schmid, SuSE's vice president of marketing, “Ximian Desktop 2 is an elegant and interoperable desktop environment that directly addresses the needs of corporate customers.” The release supports SuSE's Linux distribution along with Red Hat Linux.
The release is now available for download at Ximian.com and a “professional edition” is also available from the Ximian web store.