Home decor and gift store Kirkland's will celebrate its grand opening this weekend in the Hamilton Crossing shopping center in East Brainerd. The specialty retailer moved into a 7,200-square-foot space at 2100 Hamilton Place Blvd., a spot formerly occupied by a tanning salon.

Kirkland's, headquartered in Nashville, has 14 stores in the state and 295 stores across the country. The grand opening celebration takes place Friday, Saturday and Sunday will feature local interior designer Chris Stephens.

6 local firms among 'Hot 100'

Six Chattanooga companies were among the 100 fastest-growing businesses in Tennessee, according to BusinessTN magazine. The local businesses among the magazine's "Hot 100" are Market Street Solutions, headed by Jeff Wade; Kenco Inc., headed by Jim Kennedy III; Walden Security, headed by Michael Walden; Lectrus Corp., headed by Jerry Driscoll; Medium, formerly known as Coptix, headed by Josiah Roe; and East Tech Co., headed by Roger Layne.

Budweiser of Clarksville, which bought the former Beasley Distributing Co. of Soddy-Daisy, also was ranked among the fastest-growing firms.

VW reports higher sales

Volkswagen of America Inc. has posted higher sales in October over a year ago with its CC four-door coupe and compact Jetta leading the way.

VW reported October sales of 17,037, up 7.2 percent.

The CC recorded sales of 2,349 units, its best month since March. The Jetta, consistently Volkswagen's top selling model, posted a 25 percent increase.

"We're extremely pleased with our October sales results," said Mark Barnes, VW of America's chief operating officer.

800 at Microsoft lose their jobs

REDMOND, Wash. -- Microsoft Corp. says it is cutting 800 more jobs. That's in addition to the 5,000 layoffs it announced in January.

Lou Gellos, a Microsoft spokesman, said Wednesday the cuts are being made in offices around the globe. He would not say what specific product groups or job types are affected.

Gellos also says Microsoft had already let nearly all of the 5,000 go, in what was the company's first-ever widespread layoffs.

Microsoft also said in January it would continue to hire in key areas such as Web search. The software maker, based in Redmond, Wash., employed about 94,000 people as of the end of December 2008. At the end of September, about 91,000 people worked for Microsoft, indicating the company has added 2,000 jobs this year.