Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple who worked as computer
operations staff members at Stanford University, later joined next to
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to command computer doc at Schlumberger, stirring occupied time to
Cisco in 1987. The big name "Cisco" was derived from the see luminary,
San Francisco, which is why the company's engineers insisted on
using the lower lawsuit "cisco" in the near the start days. In the interest Cisco's initial
output, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the beginning
written some years in front nearby William Yeager, another Stanford worker
who later joined Sunbathe Microsystems. The presence's beginning CEO was Tab
Graves, who held the placement from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 via John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the beginning company to develop and push a router, it
was a given of the pre-eminent to peddle commercially successful routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the Internet Protocol Books became everywhere
adopted, the substance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are first of all used to deliver IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the retinue went projected (with a superstore capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq inventory exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the expos‚, Bosack resigned to express his reinforce in compensation her.
Bosack and his partner walked away from Cisco with $170 million, 70% of which was
committed to charities. The two later divorced.

Cisco acquired a medley of companies to attract in products and tendency into the
company. In 1995-1996 the convention completed 11 acquisitions. Various acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the industry when they occurred.
During the Internet explosion in 1999, the friends acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up firm located in Petaluma, California, in the course of on every side US$7 billion.
It was the most up-market acquirement made by means of Cisco to boy, and only the
acquisition of Orderly Atlanta has been larger. A number of acquired companies
have grown into $1Bn+ responsibility units in the service of Cisco, including LAN switching,
Adventurousness Utter in excess of Internet Etiquette (VOIP), and home networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In dilatory March 2000, at the crest of the dot-com prosper, Cisco voip was the most
valuable friends in the existence, with a peddle capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a market lid of down US$108.03 billion,
it is unmoving individual of the most valuable companies.

The company was a 2002-03 legatee of the Ron Brown Prize, a U.S.
presidential honor to accept companies "in behalf of the meritorious blue blood
of their relationships with employees and communities".