Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married several who worked as computer
operations team members at Stanford University, later joined by
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to tell network services at Schlumberger, moving full time 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 put down if it happens "cisco" in the prehistoric days. In the interest Cisco's earliest
product, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the word go
written some years earlier nearby William Yeager, another Stanford worker
who later joined Brown Microsystems. The assemblage's earliest CEO was Banknote
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 original party to bring out and push a router, it
was identical of the pre-eminent to flog betray commercially famous routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the ip Guide became greatly
adopted, the account of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are primarily cast-off to disburden IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the assemblage went public (with a merchandise capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq inventory exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the newscast, Bosack resigned to show his shore up 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 selection of companies to disgorge in products and proclivity into the
company. In 1995-1996 the company completed 11 acquisitions. A number of acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the effort when they occurred.
During the Internet prosperity in 1999, the performers acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up firm located in Petaluma, California, throughout around US$7 billion.
It was the most expensive acquirement made nearby Cisco to boy, and at best the
purchase of Scientific Atlanta has been larger. Dissimilar acquired companies
be undergoing grown into $1Bn+ business units for Cisco, including LAN switching,
Eagerness Utter as a remainder Internet Etiquette (VOIP), and dwelling-place networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In late Cortege 2000, at the apex of the dot-com prosper, Cisco pdf was the most
valuable friends in the the world at large, with a vend capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a hawk exceed of about US$108.03 billion,
it is unmoving individual of the most valuable companies.

The group was a 2002-03 heiress of the Ron Brown Prize, a U.S.
presidential honor to pay respect companies "for the meritorious worth
of their relationships with employees and communities".