Manugistics to require unpaid vacations

Business software company Manugistics said Tuesday that it plans to shut down its offices and require 1,000 U.S. employees to take four days of unpaid vacation following Labor Day in an effort to cut costs. The Rockville, Md.-based company imposed several days of during the week of the July 4th holiday as well, as did Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard.

Manugistics posted a wider-than-expected first-quarter loss on declining sales and recently laid off about 12 percent of its staff. The company's second quarter ends this month. Nearly all enterprise software companies, including rivals i2 Technologies, Oracle and SAP, are grappling with declining software sales.