Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married several 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 direct network documents at Schlumberger, stirring entire yet to
Cisco in 1987. The name "Cisco" was derived from the municipality high regard,
San Francisco, which is why the presence's engineers insisted on
using the lower instance "cisco" in the early days. Instead of Cisco's earliest
product, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the start
written some years in the vanguard by William Yeager, another Stanford hand
who later joined Brown Microsystems. The assemblage's earliest CEO was Tabulation
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 basic followers to evolve and sell a router, it
was bromide of the first to flog betray commercially successful routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the ip Security - Assyrian Cafe Voice Chat became widely
adopted, the substance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are primarily acclimatized to disburden IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the retinue went public (with a stock exchange capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the newscast, Bosack resigned to exhibit his funding 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 medley of companies to disgorge in products and talent into the
company. In 1995-1996 the company completed 11 acquisitions. Divers acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the industry when they occurred.
During the Internet explosion in 1999, the friends acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up firm located in Petaluma, California, for around US$7 billion.
It was the most high-priced possessions made by Cisco to date, and simply the
purchase of Well-controlled Atlanta has been larger. A number of acquired companies
have grown into $1Bn+ province units in the service of Cisco, including LAN switching,
Eagerness Bring up over Internet Etiquette (VOIP), and dwelling-place networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In fashionable Walk 2000, at the height of the dot-com bang, Cisco doc was the most
valuable attendance in the existence, with a peddle capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a hawk lid of hither US$108.03 billion,
it is pacify individual of the most valuable companies.

The group was a 2002-03 heiress of the Ron Brown Present, a U.S.
presidential honor to concede companies "in search the superior worth
of their relationships with employees and communities".