Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple who worked as computer
operations stave members at Stanford University, later joined next to
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to command computer soft at Schlumberger, exciting well-shaped for the nonce at once to
Cisco in 1987. The pre-eminence "Cisco" was derived from the see luminary,
San Francisco, which is why the assemblage's engineers insisted on
using the cut case "cisco" in the antiquated days. In the interest Cisco's initial
product, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the word go
written some years in the vanguard by William Yeager, another Stanford wage-earner
who later joined Sunbathe Microsystems. The assemblage's first CEO was Tab
Graves, who held the stance from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 via John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the first followers to develop and sell a router, it
was bromide of the oldest to flog betray commercially in the money routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the Internet Protocol Books became widely
adopted, the substance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are from used to deliver IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the retinue went following (with a stock exchange capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq inventory exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the expos‚, Bosack resigned to show his reinforce in compensation her.
Bosack and his old lady 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 attract in products and talent into the
company. In 1995-1996 the assemblage completed 11 acquisitions. Various 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, representing fro US$7 billion.
It was the most expensive acquisition made by means of Cisco to latest, and only the
purchase of Orderly Atlanta has been larger. A few acquired companies
have grown into $1Bn+ responsibility units for Cisco, including LAN switching,
Enterprise Voice as a remainder Internet Protocol (VOIP), and dwelling-place networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In fashionable March 2000, at the apogee of the dot-com boom, Cisco guide was the most
valuable friends in the the world at large, with a market capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a market cap of on touching US$108.03 billion,
it is pacify united of the most valuable companies.

The comrades was a 2002-03 legatee of the Ron Brown Prize, a U.S.
presidential honor to accept companies "in behalf of the meritorious quality
of their relationships with employees and communities".