Adobe plans one-week U.S. shutdown

Adobe announced it would shut down its U.S. operations during the week of July 4 as a cost-cutting measure, in part, to save on high energy costs in California during the peak usage season.

Adobe Senior Vice President and CFO Murray Demo made the announcement this morning during a spring analyst meeting held in New York. "As we go into Q3, we're going to be managing our expenses very, very tightly," Demo said. In addition to being "very selective" in its Q3 hiring, Demo said the company will shut down U.S. operations during the week of the July 4 holiday, when the company expects many employees to be off anyway.

"As we've done in the past, we're just going to take the opportunity to shut down our U.S. operations during the Fourth of July week," Demo said before moving on to other matters.

No Adobe spokesperson was immediately available for comment this afternoon, but The Wall Street Journal reports that the company expects to save approximately $4 million with the move. It also says that Adobe employees will be asked to take vacation time during this shutdown. The company has experienced similar holiday shut downs in the past during Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Year. The move will affect about 2,000 workers.

Sun Microsystems also announced plans last week to shut down its operations the same week. That move is expected to affect 43,000 employees.

During today's analyst meeting, the company reaffirmed it second-quarter growth targets, but postponed giving any guidance about Q3 expectations until it releases its Q2 results June 14.

Adobe President and CEO Bruce Chizen outlined the company's vision of Network Publishing for the assembled group today and said market estimates for their products remain on target to reach $9 billion by 2004.

"Fortunately, over the past six months, the growth drivers of Network Publishing haven't changed," Chizen said, adding that companies continue to produce "tons" of information that needs to be presented in a rich and dynamic format.

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