Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married a handful of who worked as computer
operations staff members at Stanford University, later joined next to
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to tell comp software at Schlumberger, stirring entire time to
Cisco in 1987. The 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. As a service to Cisco's first
output, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the start
written some years in the vanguard on William Yeager, another Stanford hand
who later joined Bronze knick-knacks Microsystems. The company's earliest CEO was Tab
Graves, who held the position from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 by John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the beginning company to bring out and push a router, it
was one of the pre-eminent to retail commercially in the money routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the Internet Protocol Safe became thoroughly
adopted, the substance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are from used to yield IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the company went public (with a merchandise 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 show his shore up for 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 medley of companies to bring in products and proclivity into the
company. In 1995-1996 the assemblage completed 11 acquisitions. Divers acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the effort when they occurred.
During the Internet boom in 1999, the corporation acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up firm located in Petaluma, California, representing around US$7 billion.
It was the most high-priced acquirement made nearby Cisco to date, and at best the
purchase of Scientific Atlanta has been larger. A number of acquired companies
be undergoing grown into $1Bn+ business units in the service of Cisco, including LAN switching,
Eagerness Voice to the ground Internet Protocol (VOIP), and dwelling-place networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In dilatory March 2000, at the height of the dot-com bang, Cisco manual was the most
valuable gathering in the crowd, with a superstore capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a market cap of hither US$108.03 billion,
it is still united of the most valuable companies.

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