Siemens Slashes Jobs; Southwest Cozies Up to Canada; VMWare Axes CEO; Office Depot Drops on Dismal Sales; Oil Drops $10 in a Week; Fed’s New Lending Restrictions; Anheuser Busch Sues InBev; ConocoPhilips Strikes Deal with Abu Dhabi Siemens AG (ADR: SI) announced yesterday (Tuesday) that it would eliminate almost 17,000 positions to prepare for a global economic downturn. The Germany-based industrial giant hopes to achieve $1.9 billion (1.2 billion euros) in cost savings by 2010. Chief Executive Peter Loescher said Siemens needed to be faster, more efficient and have a leaner administration if it hoped to compete, Reuters reported. Southwest Airlines Co. (LUV) and Canada-based WestJet Airlines Ltd. yesterday (Tuesday) announced a marketing alliance that is planned to go into effect in 2009. “This gives WestJet exactly what they need in terms of growing their trans-border ...

Orbitz Worldwide (OWW) plan on offering 39.1 million shares at a range of $16-$18. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Lehman are lead managing the deal