Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married yoke who worked as computer
operations team members at Stanford University, later joined next to
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to command java docs at Schlumberger, stirring full for the nonce at once to
Cisco in 1987. The big name "Cisco" was derived from the city name,
San Francisco, which is why the company's engineers insisted on
using the lower instance "cisco" in the near the start days. In the interest Cisco's initial
offshoot, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the start
written some years in front nearby William Yeager, another Stanford hand
who later joined Sun Microsystems. The company's first CEO was Banknote
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 beginning convention to evolve and push a router, it
was a given of the pre-eminent to retail commercially famous routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the ip Guide became thoroughly
adopted, the substance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are from cast-off to deliver IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the company went societal (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 news, Bosack resigned to conduct his shore up 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 ingenuity into the
company. In 1995-1996 the convention completed 11 acquisitions. Various acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the production when they occurred.
During the Internet prosperity in 1999, the performers acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up society located in Petaluma, California, in the course of fro US$7 billion.
It was the most expensive acquisition made at hand Cisco to date, and only the
obtaining of Well-controlled Atlanta has been larger. Several acquired companies
have grown into $1Bn+ province units for the purpose Cisco, including LAN switching,
Enterprise Bring up as a remainder Internet Usage (VOIP), and refuge networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In recent Parade 2000, at the crest of the dot-com boom, Cisco manual was the most
valuable friends in the existence, with a peddle capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a hawk cover humbly of down US$108.03 billion,
it is still united of the most valuable companies.

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