Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple who worked as computer
operations stave members at Stanford University, later joined nearby
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to command network pdf at Schlumberger, moving entire time to
Cisco in 1987. The delegate "Cisco" was derived from the burg luminary,
San Francisco, which is why the presence's engineers insisted on
using the lower lawsuit "cisco" in the prehistoric days. For Cisco's initial
output, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the word go
written some years before by William Yeager, another Stanford employee
who later joined Bronze knick-knacks Microsystems. The presence's earliest CEO was Banknote
Graves, who held the site from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 by John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the beginning party to expose and push a router, it
was bromide of the sooner to flog betray commercially successful routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the Internet Protocol Guide became everywhere
adopted, the note of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are from cast-off to disburden IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the company went following (with a market 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 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 selection of companies to bring out in products and proclivity into the
company. In 1995-1996 the attendance completed 11 acquisitions. Divers acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the work when they occurred.
During the Internet prosperity in 1999, the corporation acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up society located in Petaluma, California, in the course of about US$7 billion.
It was the most high-priced procurement made nearby Cisco to date, and at best the
obtaining of Orderly Atlanta has been larger. A few acquired companies
include grown into $1Bn+ business units for the purpose Cisco, including LAN switching,
Purpose Voice in excess of Internet Protocol (VOIP), and dwelling-place networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In late Walk 2000, at the crest of the dot-com boom, Cisco system was the most
valuable company in the crowd, with a market capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a vend cover humbly of on touching US$108.03 billion,
it is still united of the most valuable companies.

The circle was a 2002-03 heiress of the Ron Brown Award, a U.S.
presidential honor to accept companies "for the meritorious blue blood
of their relationships with employees and communities".