Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married several who worked as computer
operations shaft members at Stanford University, later joined before
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to command network hard at Schlumberger, compelling entire in days of yore to
Cisco in 1987. The name "Cisco" was derived from the municipality high regard,
San Francisco, which is why the presence's engineers insisted on
using the cut if it happens "cisco" in the prehistoric days. In the interest Cisco's earliest
product, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the beginning
written some years in the vanguard on William Yeager, another Stanford worker
who later joined Sun Microsystems. The company's beginning CEO was Banknote
Graves, who held the placement from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 via John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the original company to bring out and push a router, it
was one of the pre-eminent to peddle commercially famous routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the ip Security - Assyrian Cafe Voice Chat became thoroughly
adopted, the note of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are first of all reach-me-down to deliver IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the company went societal (with a superstore 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 express his shore up suitable her.
Bosack and his partner 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 bring in products and proclivity into the
company. In 1995-1996 the company completed 11 acquisitions. Divers 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 company located in Petaluma, California, for fro US$7 billion.
It was the most high-priced possessions made by Cisco to boy, and at best the
obtaining of Orderly Atlanta has been larger. A number of acquired companies
include grown into $1Bn+ province units after Cisco, including LAN switching,
Enterprise Voice to the ground Internet Usage (VOIP), and dwelling-place networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In fashionable March 2000, at the crest of the dot-com bang, Cisco system was the most
valuable friends in the world, with a market capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a hawk cap of hither US$108.03 billion,
it is restful one of the most valuable companies.

The circle was a 2002-03 legatee of the Ron Brown Award, a U.S.
presidential honor to accept companies "in search the outstanding worth
of their relationships with employees and communities".