For the first time since 2007, General Motors announced a quarterly profit this morning for its first quarter.

The Detroit automaker reported that it earned $865 million during the quarter, and that revenues were up 40% to $31.8 billion. During the same period last year the company had a loss of $6 billion.

Former AT&T (T) head Ed Whitacre may be shaping up the new General Motors to be like the old monopolist SBC (that is, Southwestern Bell Communications for those keeping track). SBC became AT&T of course, as the old Ma Bell companies started combining back together years ago after two decades apart.

Whitacre, a tough CEO with thousands of people in his pocket, has now tapped two former AT&T colleagues as lobbyists in Washington to chew the fat with politicians over the future of the former automaking behemoth.

General Motors said Monday it has tapped Christopher P. Liddell, chief financial officer of Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), to take over its troubled finance operations. Liddell, 51, will be GM's first permanent top management hire from outside the company since it left bankruptcy protection in July.

Liddell joined Microsoft in 2005, and led the company's efforts this year to cut $3 billion in costs in light of the economic meltdown. These efforts included Microsoft's first mass layoffs, wage freezes, and cuts to employee travel. The stockpiling cash was also a priority during Liddell's tenure, which Microsoft announced last month would end on Dec. 31.

General Motors Co. Chairman Ed Whitacre told reporters Tuesday he doesn't intend to remain in the chief executive post indefinitely.

The search for a new CEO has been underway for about a week, but so far there are no candidates, Whitacre said. He's open to candidates of all backgrounds, whether a company insider or a seasoned executive from elsewhere, with or without auto industry experience. But he'd also like the next CEO to be a inspirational and motivating leader who can restore GM to former icon status.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says if you see an offering today, you have to buy it.

Did you ever speak to Ed Whitacre when he was running Southwestern Bell? When he took that broken-up piece of Ma Bell and decided, single-handedly, that he was going to build it into a great national company with low costs and a motivated, lean management, and he wasn't going to let the unions stop him?

I did.

He was the best.

He was fierce and proud and was going to do whatever was necessary to rebuild the greatness of this once amazing company.

Out with the old, in with the...old. Former AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T) CEO Ed Whitacre, Jr. has been selected by the U.S. Government (how quaint) to lead the "new" GM once it rises from the ashes. Whitacre, who basically rebuilt AT&T into the telecom behemoth that was dismantled by the U.S. Government in 1984, will be in charge of re-surfacing GM's future road to glory.