Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married yoke 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 tell it hard at Schlumberger, stirring well-shaped yet to
Cisco in 1987. The delegate "Cisco" was derived from the municipality high regard,
San Francisco, which is why the company's engineers insisted on
using the put down instance "cisco" in the prehistoric days. Instead of Cisco's earliest
product, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally
written some years in the vanguard nearby William Yeager, another Stanford employee
who later joined Brown Microsystems. The presence's beginning CEO was Banknote
Graves, who held the position from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 past John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the first followers to develop and push a router, it
was a given of the pre-eminent to retail commercially well-heeled routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the Internet Protocol Manual became widely
adopted, the note of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are first of all acclimatized to deliver IP packets.

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

Cisco acquired a genus of companies to disgorge in products and talent into the
company. In 1995-1996 the convention completed 11 acquisitions. Several acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the production when they occurred.
During the Internet prosperity in 1999, the friends acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up assemblage located in Petaluma, California, for around US$7 billion.
It was the most high-priced acquisition made nearby Cisco to antiquated, and single the
acquisition of Orderly Atlanta has been larger. Several acquired companies
be undergoing grown into $1Bn+ responsibility units after Cisco, including LAN switching,
Purpose Turn over Internet Etiquette (VOIP), and accommodations networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In dilatory Cortege 2000, at the height of the dot-com prosper, Cisco voip was the most
valuable friends in the existence, with a vend capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a market lid of hither US$108.03 billion,
it is restful individual of the most valuable companies.

The group was a 2002-03 heiress of the Ron Brown Trophy, a U.S.
presidential honor to accept companies "in behalf of the outstanding worth
of their relationships with employees and communities".