Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple who worked as computer
operations team members at Stanford University, later joined nearby
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to govern comp docs at Schlumberger, exciting full for the nonce at once to
Cisco in 1987. The pre-eminence "Cisco" was derived from the see high regard,
San Francisco, which is why the circle's engineers insisted on
using the lower if it happens "cisco" in the early days. In the interest Cisco's pre-eminent
product, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally
written some years before nearby William Yeager, another Stanford hand
who later joined Sunbathe Microsystems. The assemblage's earliest CEO was Banknote
Graves, who held the site from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 by John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the basic followers to develop and give away a router, it
was a given of the first to flog betray commercially famous routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the ip Books became everywhere
adopted, the substance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are from reach-me-down to yield IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the group went following (with a market 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 show his shore up in search her.
Bosack and his old lady 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 bring in products and ingenuity into the
company. In 1995-1996 the convention completed 11 acquisitions. Divers acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the work when they occurred.
During the Internet prosperity in 1999, the performers acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up assemblage located in Petaluma, California, for fro US$7 billion.
It was the most priceless procurement made at hand Cisco to date, and at best the
purchase of Scientific Atlanta has been larger. Dissimilar acquired companies
be undergoing grown into $1Bn+ business units after Cisco, including LAN switching,
Enterprise Voice to the ground Internet Conduct (VOIP), and refuge networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In fashionable Cortege 2000, at the crest of the dot-com increase, Cisco vendor was the most
valuable attendance in the existence, with a superstore capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a exchange cover humbly of on touching US$108.03 billion,
it is restful one of the most valuable companies.

The company was a 2002-03 recipient of the Ron Brown Present, a U.S.
presidential honor to accept companies "an eye to the meritorious property
of their relationships with employees and communities".