Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married several who worked as computer
operations staff members at Stanford University, later joined by
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to direct comp ppt at Schlumberger, stirring occupied time to
Cisco in 1987. The name "Cisco" was derived from the burg luminary,
San Francisco, which is why the presence's engineers insisted on
using the lower lawsuit "cisco" in the prehistoric days. For Cisco's earliest
product, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the beginning
written some years earlier on William Yeager, another Stanford hand
who later joined Bronze knick-knacks 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 past John Chambers.

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

On February 16 1990, the company went projected (with a market capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq house 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 variety of companies to bring out in products and ingenuity into the
company. In 1995-1996 the attendance completed 11 acquisitions. Various acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the effort when they occurred.
During the Internet prosperity in 1999, the performers acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up firm located in Petaluma, California, representing fro US$7 billion.
It was the most up-market acquisition made by means of Cisco to latest, and simply the
purchase of Scientific Atlanta has been larger. A number of acquired companies
be undergoing grown into $1Bn+ responsibility units after Cisco, including LAN switching,
Adventurousness Turn as a remainder Internet Protocol (VOIP), and dwelling-place networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In dilatory Walk 2000, at the height of the dot-com increase, Cisco system was the most
valuable company in the world, with a market capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a vend exceed of on touching US$108.03 billion,
it is still one of the most valuable companies.

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