Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married a handful of 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 direct network hardware at Schlumberger, compelling entire yet to
Cisco in 1987. The delegate "Cisco" was derived from the city name,
San Francisco, which is why the assemblage's engineers insisted on
using the cut case "cisco" in the early days. For Cisco's initial
offshoot, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the start
written some years in front on William Yeager, another Stanford hand
who later joined Sun Microsystems. The company'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 past John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the original followers to evolve and push a router, it
was identical of the first to peddle commercially famous routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the Internet Protocol Guide became greatly
adopted, the importance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are primarily cast-off to disburden IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the retinue went projected (with a market capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq inventory exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the news, Bosack resigned to express his reinforce in search 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 disgorge in products and proclivity into the
company. In 1995-1996 the assemblage completed 11 acquisitions. Various acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the effort when they occurred.
During the Internet boom in 1999, the company acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up society located in Petaluma, California, throughout on every side US$7 billion.
It was the most expensive procurement made at hand Cisco to boy, and single the
possessions of Precise Atlanta has been larger. Dissimilar acquired companies
have grown into $1Bn+ business units for Cisco, including LAN switching,
Enterprise Voice in excess of Internet Protocol (VOIP), and refuge networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In late Walk 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom, Cisco ppt was the most
valuable attendance in the the world at large, with a vend capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a market exceed of down US$108.03 billion,
it is pacify one of the most valuable companies.

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