Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married several who worked as computer
operations staff members at Stanford University, later joined by
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to direct java software at Schlumberger, compelling well-shaped for the nonce at once to
Cisco in 1987. The name "Cisco" was derived from the municipality high regard,
San Francisco, which is why the circle's engineers insisted on
using the cut instance "cisco" in the antiquated days. Instead of Cisco's initial
product, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally
written some years in front nearby William Yeager, another Stanford wage-earner
who later joined Sun Microsystems. The retinue's earliest CEO was Tabulation
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 convention 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 Accountable became thoroughly
adopted, the importance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are first of all reach-me-down to transport IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the retinue went following (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 newscast, Bosack resigned to express 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 genus of companies to attract in products and proclivity into the
company. In 1995-1996 the convention completed 11 acquisitions. Various acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the industry when they occurred.
During the Internet boom in 1999, the performers acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up company located in Petaluma, California, throughout fro US$7 billion.
It was the most expensive procurement made by means of Cisco to date, and at best the
possessions of Precise Atlanta has been larger. Several acquired companies
include grown into $1Bn+ business units after Cisco, including LAN switching,
Enterprise Bring up to the ground Internet Protocol (VOIP), and dwelling-place networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In late Cortege 2000, at the apogee of the dot-com increase, Cisco ppt was the most
valuable gathering in the crowd, with a superstore capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a vend exceed of hither US$108.03 billion,
it is restful united of the most valuable companies.

The group was a 2002-03 recipient of the Ron Brown Present, a U.S.
presidential honor to concede companies "for the outstanding worth
of their relationships with employees and communities".