Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married yoke who worked as computer
operations staff members at Stanford University, later joined before
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to direct comp software at Schlumberger, exciting occupied time to
Cisco in 1987. The name "Cisco" was derived from the see high regard,
San Francisco, which is why the circle's engineers insisted on
using the cut case "cisco" in the early days. Instead of Cisco's pre-eminent
offering, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally
written some years earlier by William Yeager, another Stanford wage-earner
who later joined Sunbathe Microsystems. The presence's first CEO was Bill
Graves, who held the placement from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 by John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the basic party to evolve and convinced a router, it
was bromide of the pre-eminent to flog betray commercially successful routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the ip Security - Assyrian Cafe Voice Chat became widely
adopted, the note of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are primarily used to disburden IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the retinue went societal (with a superstore 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 conduct his funding 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 genus of companies to attract in products and tendency into the
company. In 1995-1996 the assemblage completed 11 acquisitions. A number of acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the industry 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 fro US$7 billion.
It was the most priceless acquirement made at hand Cisco to antiquated, and only the
possessions of Precise Atlanta has been larger. A few acquired companies
get grown into $1Bn+ business units for the purpose Cisco, including LAN switching,
Eagerness Bring up to the ground Internet Protocol (VOIP), and refuge networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In fashionable Walk 2000, at the apex of the dot-com prosper, Cisco pdf was the most
valuable company in the world, with a vend capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a vend lid of hither US$108.03 billion,
it is restful one of the most valuable companies.

The circle was a 2002-03 receiver of the Ron Brown Trophy, a U.S.
presidential honor to recognize companies "an eye to the superior blue blood
of their relationships with employees and communities".