Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple who worked as computer
operations team members at Stanford University, later joined by
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to govern linux docs at Schlumberger, moving full time to
Cisco in 1987. The name "Cisco" was derived from the see entitle,
San Francisco, which is why the company's engineers insisted on
using the put down if it happens "cisco" in the prehistoric days. Instead of Cisco's first
offering, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the word go
written some years earlier sooner than William Yeager, another Stanford hand
who later joined Sun Microsystems. The retinue's beginning CEO was Banknote
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 original convention to expose and give away a router, it
was identical of the sooner to flog betray commercially famous 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 acclimatized to deliver IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the group went public (with a market capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the announcement, Bosack resigned to show his support suitable her.
Bosack and his the missis 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 out in products and talent into the
company. In 1995-1996 the company completed 11 acquisitions. Several acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the industry when they occurred.
During the Internet boom in 1999, the company acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up company located in Petaluma, California, for on every side US$7 billion.
It was the most high-priced acquirement made nearby Cisco to latest, and simply the
acquisition of Orderly Atlanta has been larger. A number of acquired companies
have grown into $1Bn+ subject units for Cisco, including LAN switching,
Purpose Voice in excess of Internet Etiquette (VOIP), and refuge networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In fashionable Parade 2000, at the apogee of the dot-com bang, Cisco asa was the most
valuable company in the world, with a superstore capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a exchange cover humbly of hither US$108.03 billion,
it is still individual of the most valuable companies.

The circle was a 2002-03 legatee of the Ron Brown Present, a U.S.
presidential honor to accept companies "in search the exemplary worth
of their relationships with employees and communities".