Cisco to suspend North American business over New Year

Cisco will maintain business-critical operations during the four-day closure

Cisco Systems plans to close down most of its North American operations for four days over the New Year period in a bid to cut costs, according to a company blog post.

Earlier this month, chief executive John Chambers said that the firm would be looking to cut costs, and the office shut-down from 29 December 2008 to 2 January 2009 are part of this strategy.

Although some areas of the business will remain active, including business-critical teams such as technical assistance and channel partner services, the rest of the firm's US and Canada business will close down for four days.

John Earnhardt, senior manager of global media operations at Cisco, said in a blog post: "While this is not our first year-end shutdown, as we followed this longstanding Silicon Valley practice in our early years as a company, it is our first in over a decade.

"Given the difficult macro-economic conditions, we believe our cost control focus at this time is appropriate while still providing our partners and customers with critical services over the holiday period."

Earnhardt added that the move would be part of a larger plan to weather the current financial storms, which includes investment as well as cost cutting.

"While we will undertake appropriate expense management initiatives in the current environment, we will also make some calculated investments into areas where we believe we can accelerate development and Cisco’s leadership," he said.