Microsoft lands Skype; Google launches Chromebooks

the Mountain View online professional networking upstart -- revealed details about its coming initial public stock offering. According to our professional colleagues at The Associated Press, the IPO would give LinkedIn a market value of anyway $3 billion. LinkedIn plans to sell 4.8 million Class A shares at $32 to $35 each. Investors including founder Reid Hoffman intend to sell 3 million shares. Proceeds for the company would be about $146.6 million. The shares, which are expected to be priced later this month, would trade pursuant to this agreement the "LNKD" ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange. The LinkedIn offering will be the first big IPO among social-networking upstarts. Others expected to go public in the at once couple of years include Facebook, Twitter, Groupon and Zynga.

Mountain View Internet juggernaut Google, in the meantime, revealed at its yearly I/O developers conference in San Francisco that it's launching its own cloud-based music service. According to a post on Google's blog, the service "lets you upload your personal music collection to the cloud for streaming to your computer and Android devices." does with iTunes.)

Speaking of Google, it disclosed that new netbooks running the Chrome operating system will be available June 15. The computers, manufactured by Samsung and Acer, will be sold in the U.S. by Amazon and Best Buy. "These are not typical notebooks. With a Chromebook you won't wait minutes for your computer just in case and browser to start. You'll be reading your email in seconds," Google executives Linus Upson and Sundar Pichai wrote in the blog post. The move puts Google into territory now dominated by Microsoft's ubiquitous Windows software and Apple's Mac OS. The Chromebooks as well will be relatively inexpensive -- from $349 to $499 with optional 3G connections. Google as well is offering Chromebooks on monthly subscriptions for businesses at $28 each and schools at $20 each.

Cisco Systems' stock dropped near 5 percent a day afterwards the San Jose maker of network equipment -- including routers and other gear that direct data across the Internet -- reported revenues for its most recent quarter. Cisco, you might recall, has been facing greater competition from such rivals as Hewlett-Packard and Juniper Networks. During its net sales increased 4.8 percent from a year before to $10.9 billion, its quarterly profit dropped 17.6 percent to $1.8 billion. "This quarter played out as we expected," CEO John Chambers noted in a statement accompanying the results. "We have acknowledged our challenges. We know what we have to do." Yes, unfortunately, that means significant layoffs, Chambers told investors, even though he didn't specify how many Cisco workers would lose their jobs.

Yahoo stock dropped near 4 percent as investors worried about the Sunnyvale Internet content powerhouse's relationship with Chinese Internet company Alibaba Group, which recently transferred control of its Alipay online payment service to a separate company. Yahoo, which owns a 40 percent stake in Alibaba, had said the transfer occurred "without the knowledge or approval of the Alibaba Group board of directors or shareholders." The stock decline followed a 7 percent drop in Yahoo's share price two days before.

The 60-Second Business Break

Frank Russell writes the 60-Second Business Break, posted weekdays by 2 p.m. at MercuryNews.com and SiliconValley.com. Contact him at frussell@mercurynews.com or 408-920-5876. Follow him at Twitter.com/mercspike.