Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married several who worked as computer
operations stave members at Stanford University, later joined next to
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to command comp doc at Schlumberger, compelling entire yet to
Cisco in 1987. The delegate "Cisco" was derived from the city name,
San Francisco, which is why the company's engineers insisted on
using the put down if it happens "cisco" in the prehistoric days. For Cisco's pre-eminent
offshoot, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the beginning
written some years before sooner than William Yeager, another Stanford wage-earner
who later joined Bronze knick-knacks Microsystems. The retinue's earliest CEO was Tab
Graves, who held the site from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 by way of John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the first convention to bring out and push a router, it
was a given of the sooner to flog betray commercially in the money routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the ip Books became thoroughly
adopted, the account of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are from reach-me-down to deliver IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the company went societal (with a stock exchange capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq house exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the expos‚, Bosack resigned to conduct his support in compensation 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 medley of companies to attract in products and ingenuity into the
company. In 1995-1996 the assemblage completed 11 acquisitions. Divers acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the production when they occurred.
During the Internet explosion in 1999, the friends acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up firm located in Petaluma, California, for fro US$7 billion.
It was the most up-market acquisition made nearby Cisco to latest, and single the
obtaining of Scientific Atlanta has been larger. Several acquired companies
include grown into $1Bn+ subject units for the purpose Cisco, including LAN switching,
Purpose Turn in excess of Internet Usage (VOIP), and home networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In fashionable Walk 2000, at the apex of the dot-com bang, Cisco system was the most
valuable company in the world, with a peddle capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a market cover humbly of down US$108.03 billion,
it is still one of the most valuable companies.

The company was a 2002-03 heiress of the Ron Brown Trophy, a U.S.
presidential honor to pay respect companies "in behalf of the superior quality
of their relationships with employees and communities".