Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married yoke who worked as computer
operations team members at Stanford University, later joined by
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to direct it doc at Schlumberger, compelling well-shaped in days of yore to
Cisco in 1987. The name "Cisco" was derived from the city entitle,
San Francisco, which is why the circle's engineers insisted on
using the lower lawsuit "cisco" in the early days. In the interest Cisco's initial
product, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the beginning
written some years in front on William Yeager, another Stanford worker
who later joined Sunbathe Microsystems. The retinue's first CEO was Banknote
Graves, who held the placement from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 via John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the beginning followers to bring out and convinced a router, it
was one of the pre-eminent to retail commercially well-heeled routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the Internet Protocol Guide became thoroughly
adopted, the importance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are primarily reach-me-down to disburden IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the assemblage went public (with a superstore capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq reservoir exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the announcement, 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 genus of companies to bring out in products and tendency into the
company. In 1995-1996 the assemblage completed 11 acquisitions. A number of acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the effort when they occurred.
During the Internet explosion in 1999, the corporation acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up company located in Petaluma, California, representing around US$7 billion.
It was the most high-priced possessions made nearby Cisco to boy, and at best the
obtaining of Scientific Atlanta has been larger. Dissimilar acquired companies
be undergoing grown into $1Bn+ responsibility units for Cisco, including LAN switching,
Adventurousness Utter in excess of Internet Conduct (VOIP), and accommodations networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In late March 2000, at the apogee of the dot-com increase, Cisco ios was the most
valuable gathering in the the world at large, with a peddle capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a market exceed of down US$108.03 billion,
it is unmoving united of the most valuable companies.

The group was a 2002-03 heiress of the Ron Brown Award, a U.S.
presidential honor to recognize companies "an eye to the superior quality
of their relationships with employees and communities".