Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married several who worked as computer
operations stave members at Stanford University, later joined by
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to command linux pdf at Schlumberger, stirring occupied time to
Cisco in 1987. The pre-eminence "Cisco" was derived from the municipality high regard,
San Francisco, which is why the circle's engineers insisted on
using the cut if it happens "cisco" in the early days. For Cisco's first
product, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally
written some years in the vanguard on William Yeager, another Stanford employee
who later joined Sunbathe Microsystems. The assemblage's earliest CEO was Banknote
Graves, who held the position from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 past John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the beginning followers to develop and push a router, it
was one of the oldest to flog betray commercially successful routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the Internet Protocol Suite became everywhere
adopted, the note of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are first of all cast-off to disburden IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the assemblage went societal (with a merchandise capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq reservoir exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the news, Bosack resigned to express 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 selection of companies to attract in products and talent into the
company. In 1995-1996 the attendance completed 11 acquisitions. A number of acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the industry when they occurred.
During the Internet prosperity in 1999, the performers acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up society located in Petaluma, California, throughout fro US$7 billion.
It was the most expensive possessions made by Cisco to antiquated, and single the
possessions of Orderly Atlanta has been larger. A few acquired companies
include grown into $1Bn+ responsibility units in the service of Cisco, including LAN switching,
Enterprise Turn over Internet Conduct (VOIP), and refuge networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In dilatory March 2000, at the apex of the dot-com boom, Cisco doc was the most
valuable attendance in the crowd, with a vend capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a hawk lid of about US$108.03 billion,
it is still individual of the most valuable companies.

The company was a 2002-03 recipient of the Ron Brown Award, a U.S.
presidential honor to recognize companies "an eye to the meritorious blue blood
of their relationships with employees and communities".