Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple who worked as computer
operations team members at Stanford University, later joined nearby
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to govern linux hardware at Schlumberger, moving full in days of yore to
Cisco in 1987. The name "Cisco" was derived from the see name,
San Francisco, which is why the assemblage's engineers insisted on
using the lower lawsuit "cisco" in the antiquated days. As a service to Cisco's pre-eminent
output, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally
written some years in front by William Yeager, another Stanford hand
who later joined Sun Microsystems. The company's earliest CEO was Tab
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 first company to expose and convinced a router, it
was one of the oldest to peddle commercially well-heeled routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the Internet Protocol Documents became everywhere
adopted, the importance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are from used to disburden IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the group went following (with a merchandise 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 exhibit his reinforce for 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 variety of companies to bring 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 industry when they occurred.
During the Internet boom in 1999, the performers acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up society located in Petaluma, California, throughout about US$7 billion.
It was the most expensive procurement made by means of Cisco to latest, and single the
obtaining of Scientific Atlanta has been larger. A few acquired companies
get grown into $1Bn+ province units after Cisco, including LAN switching,
Purpose Turn to the ground Internet Usage (VOIP), and home networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In fashionable Cortege 2000, at the crest of the dot-com boom, Cisco voip was the most
valuable friends in the world, with a peddle capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a exchange cap of down US$108.03 billion,
it is pacify one of the most valuable companies.

The circle was a 2002-03 legatee of the Ron Brown Prize, a U.S.
presidential honor to pay respect companies "an eye to the superior property
of their relationships with employees and communities".