Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married several who worked as computer
operations stave members at Stanford University, later joined nearby
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to govern java docs at Schlumberger, moving occupied in days of yore to
Cisco in 1987. The big name "Cisco" was derived from the see entitle,
San Francisco, which is why the circle's engineers insisted on
using the lower instance "cisco" in the prehistoric days. For Cisco's pre-eminent
offshoot, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally
written some years in the vanguard nearby William Yeager, another Stanford hand
who later joined Sunbathe Microsystems. The company's earliest CEO was Tab
Graves, who held the stance from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 by John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the original followers to bring out and push a router, it
was bromide of the first to sell commercially in the money routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the Internet Protocol Documents became thoroughly
adopted, the substance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are primarily used to transport IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the group went following (with a superstore capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq house exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the announcement, Bosack resigned to conduct his support in search 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 variety of companies to attract in products and ingenuity into the
company. In 1995-1996 the assemblage completed 11 acquisitions. Various acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the industry when they occurred.
During the Internet blast in 1999, the corporation acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up company located in Petaluma, California, throughout about US$7 billion.
It was the most priceless procurement made by Cisco to antiquated, and simply the
purchase of Precise Atlanta has been larger. A number of acquired companies
include grown into $1Bn+ province units after Cisco, including LAN switching,
Eagerness Utter to the ground Internet Protocol (VOIP), and refuge networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In fashionable Parade 2000, at the apogee of the dot-com increase, Cisco router was the most
valuable friends in the existence, with a superstore capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a market lid of hither US$108.03 billion,
it is unmoving united of the most valuable companies.

The company was a 2002-03 receiver of the Ron Brown Award, a U.S.
presidential honor to concede companies "in behalf of the exemplary quality
of their relationships with employees and communities".