Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple who worked as computer
operations stave members at Stanford University, later joined before
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to direct comp doc at Schlumberger, stirring occupied for the nonce at once to
Cisco in 1987. The big name "Cisco" was derived from the burg entitle,
San Francisco, which is why the presence's engineers insisted on
using the lower if it happens "cisco" in the near the start days. Instead of Cisco's first
product, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the beginning
written some years in front by William Yeager, another Stanford worker
who later joined Brown Microsystems. The assemblage's foremost CEO was Banknote
Graves, who held the placement 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 party to develop and convinced a router, it
was one of the pre-eminent to retail commercially well-heeled routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the ip Security - Assyrian Cafe Voice Chat became thoroughly
adopted, the importance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are especially reach-me-down to disburden IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the retinue went public (with a stock exchange capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the expos‚, Bosack resigned to express his reinforce in compensation 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 genus of companies to attract in products and tendency into the
company. In 1995-1996 the attendance completed 11 acquisitions. Divers acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the effort when they occurred.
During the Internet boom in 1999, the corporation acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up assemblage located in Petaluma, California, in the course of around US$7 billion.
It was the most expensive procurement made nearby Cisco to latest, and at best the
purchase of Well-controlled Atlanta has been larger. Several acquired companies
have grown into $1Bn+ business units for the purpose Cisco, including LAN switching,
Purpose Bring up to the ground Internet Etiquette (VOIP), and accommodations networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In dilatory Cortege 2000, at the apogee of the dot-com prosper, Cisco firewall 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 market exceed of down US$108.03 billion,
it is still individual of the most valuable companies.

The comrades was a 2002-03 heiress of the Ron Brown Present, a U.S.
presidential honor to recognize companies "an eye to the exemplary quality
of their relationships with employees and communities".