Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married yoke who worked as computer
operations shaft members at Stanford University, later joined by
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to govern linux doc at Schlumberger, stirring occupied in days of yore to
Cisco in 1987. The name "Cisco" was derived from the burg name,
San Francisco, which is why the presence's engineers insisted on
using the discredit if it happens "cisco" in the antiquated days. In the interest Cisco's pre-eminent
offshoot, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally
written some years earlier by William Yeager, another Stanford wage-earner
who later joined Sun Microsystems. The company's first CEO was Bill
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 original company to bring out and sell a router, it
was identical of the first to retail commercially well-heeled routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the Internet Protocol Manual became thoroughly
adopted, the importance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are first of all acclimatized to yield IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the retinue went projected (with a stock exchange capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq reservoir exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the newscast, Bosack resigned to show his support 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 genus of companies to bring out in products and proclivity 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 blast in 1999, the company acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up company located in Petaluma, California, representing about US$7 billion.
It was the most up-market procurement made nearby Cisco to latest, and simply the
possessions of Well-controlled Atlanta has been larger. A few acquired companies
be undergoing grown into $1Bn+ province units after Cisco, including LAN switching,
Eagerness Utter over Internet Etiquette (VOIP), and home networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In recent Walk 2000, at the apogee of the dot-com boom, Cisco system was the most
valuable friends in the the world at large, with a superstore capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a vend cover humbly of hither US$108.03 billion,
it is unmoving whole of the most valuable companies.

The company was a 2002-03 recipient of the Ron Brown Award, a U.S.
presidential honor to pay respect companies "in search the superior quality
of their relationships with employees and communities".