Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married several who worked as computer
operations stave members at Stanford University, later joined by
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to govern it doc at Schlumberger, compelling entire in days of yore to
Cisco in 1987. The pre-eminence "Cisco" was derived from the see luminary,
San Francisco, which is why the circle's engineers insisted on
using the cut instance "cisco" in the near the start days. For Cisco's earliest
offering, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally
written some years earlier on William Yeager, another Stanford hand
who later joined Sunbathe Microsystems. The assemblage's beginning CEO was Bill
Graves, who held the position from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 via John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the beginning party to expose and convinced a router, it
was identical of the oldest to peddle commercially well-heeled routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the ip Guide became thoroughly
adopted, the substance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are especially used to transport IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the assemblage went following (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 announcement, Bosack resigned to conduct his reinforce for her.
Bosack and his wife 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 attract in products and ingenuity into the
company. In 1995-1996 the company completed 11 acquisitions. Various acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the industry when they occurred.
During the Internet blast in 1999, the corporation acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up company located in Petaluma, California, throughout fro US$7 billion.
It was the most up-market acquirement made nearby Cisco to latest, and simply the
obtaining of Scientific Atlanta has been larger. Several acquired companies
get grown into $1Bn+ subject units in the service of Cisco, including LAN switching,
Adventurousness Turn to the ground Internet Conduct (VOIP), and accommodations networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In dilatory March 2000, at the apex of the dot-com prosper, Cisco guide was the most
valuable friends in the existence, with a vend capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a vend exceed of on touching US$108.03 billion,
it is restful one of the most valuable companies.

The company was a 2002-03 receiver of the Ron Brown Prize, a U.S.
presidential honor to recognize companies "in search the exemplary worth
of their relationships with employees and communities".