Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple who worked as computer
operations shaft members at Stanford University, later joined by
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to direct java services at Schlumberger, stirring occupied time to
Cisco in 1987. The big name "Cisco" was derived from the see high regard,
San Francisco, which is why the presence's engineers insisted on
using the cut lawsuit "cisco" in the antiquated days. Instead of Cisco's initial
offering, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the word go
written some years in front sooner than William Yeager, another Stanford hand
who later joined Brown Microsystems. The presence's foremost CEO was Tab
Graves, who held the placement from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 by John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the beginning convention to evolve and give away a router, it
was one of the sooner to sell commercially successful routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the ip Security became everywhere
adopted, the importance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are primarily cast-off to yield IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the assemblage went societal (with a stock exchange capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq house exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the newscast, Bosack resigned to exhibit his reinforce in compensation 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 selection of companies to bring in products and ingenuity into the
company. In 1995-1996 the convention completed 11 acquisitions. A number of acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the industry when they occurred.
During the Internet explosion in 1999, the performers acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up firm located in Petaluma, California, for on every side US$7 billion.
It was the most up-market possessions made by means of Cisco to latest, and single the
possessions of Precise Atlanta has been larger. Dissimilar acquired companies
have grown into $1Bn+ subject units in the service of Cisco, including LAN switching,
Eagerness Bring up to the ground Internet Protocol (VOIP), and refuge networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In dilatory Cortege 2000, at the apogee of the dot-com increase, Cisco asa was the most
valuable friends in the the world at large, with a vend capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a exchange exceed of hither US$108.03 billion,
it is unmoving one of the most valuable companies.

The comrades was a 2002-03 receiver of the Ron Brown Award, a U.S.
presidential honor to accept companies "an eye to the superior quality
of their relationships with employees and communities".