Microsoft Corp. has decided to postpone construction of a $594 million data center in West Des Moines, Greater Des Moines Partnership officials announced today.

“The company has purchased the property and remains committed to locating in West Des Moines,” said Amanda Steward, a Partnership spokeswoman, who said the Microsoft project team notified the Partnership today of its decision. “The overall nation’s economy and increased efficiencies in servers Microsoft uses in its data centers are allowing the company to maximize existing resources for the time being,” she said. “Microsoft will be monitoring demand quarterly to determine the appropriate time to proceed with the facility in West Des Moines.”

The company yesterday reported fourth-quarter net income of $4.17 billion, an 11 percent decrease from fourth quarter 2007 earnings. It also said yesterday it will cut 5,000 jobs, or about 5 percent of its work force, as the economic downturn affects demand for software, Bloomberg reported. The job reductions are Microsoft’s first companywide firings, which it expects will save $1.5 billion.

In a posting today on a Microsoft blog, company officials said the company will proceed with construction of planned data centers in Chicago and Dublin, Ireland, and open them as customer demand warrants.

“But given the current economic climate we’re going to do the right thing for our business and shareholders and revisit our plans on a quarter-by-quarter basis,” according to the blog posted by Microsoft’s general managers of infrastructure services and data centers. “On other fronts, we are expanding existing capacity and making improvements for our other co-location facilities, like Amsterdam, that strengthen our global footprint and help us meet growing demand for online services for businesses.”

The state of Iowa approved $28 million in economic development incentives last year to build the center.