Webwire: MS profit grows 31%; Panasonic to cut 17,000 jobs

Microsoft quarterly profit grows 31%

Microsoft has reported a 31% increase in quarterly profit to $5.2 billion, on 13% higher revenue of $16.43 billion, despite what CFO Peter Klein called the “mixed” performance of the PC market.

AFP

Panasonic to cut 17,000 jobs

Panasonic plans to cut nearly 17,000 jobs over the next two years, in a second round of job cuts aimed at restoring the company's profitability.

Bloomberg

Rogers picks LTE vendor, sets launch date

Canada's Rogers Communications has chosen Ericsson to build its LTE network. The operator plans to launch its LTE network in Vancouver, Ottawa and Montreal by the end of the year, and be live in the top 25 markets by the end of 2012.

Vancouver Sun

India's Trai probing inteconnect fees

Indian telecom regulator Trai has launched a review into reducing interconnection charges, and has even floated the possibility of making the industry do away with the fees altogether.

Economic Times

Alca-Lu, Siemens mull IPOs for enterprise units

Alcatel-Lucent and Siemens are both considering IPOs of their respective enterprise equipment businesses, and Alcatel-Lucent is alternatively weighing up trying to sell its division, sources claim.

Bloomberg

Samsung launches Galaxy S II

Samsung has launched the Galaxy S II in Korea, with plans to roll the smartphone out in 120 countries by early June. The UI is little changed from the version which prompted Apple to sue Samsung accusing violation of iPhone patents and designs.

Wall Street Journal

Cisco offering early retirement to workers

Cisco will offer early retirement packages to some employees in the US and Canada in an attempt to rein in costs and improve its financial performance.

ABC News

Russia's Yandex plots $1b US IPO

Russian search firm Yandex hopes to raise up to $1 billion in an IPO on the Nasdaq exchange, and will invest the proceeds in new servers and data centers.

Reuters