Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married yoke 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 linux software at Schlumberger, exciting full time to
Cisco in 1987. The name "Cisco" was derived from the city entitle,
San Francisco, which is why the assemblage's engineers insisted on
using the lower case "cisco" in the prehistoric days. For Cisco's first
product, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally
written some years in the vanguard sooner than William Yeager, another Stanford employee
who later joined Bronze knick-knacks Microsystems. The company's beginning CEO was Tab
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 convention to bring out and sell a router, it
was bromide of the pre-eminent to peddle commercially in the money routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the Internet Protocol Accountable became everywhere
adopted, the account of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are from reach-me-down to yield IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the assemblage went public (with a superstore 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 conduct his shore up in search her.
Bosack and his wife 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 in products and ingenuity into the
company. In 1995-1996 the convention completed 11 acquisitions. Several acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the production when they occurred.
During the Internet explosion in 1999, the friends acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up company located in Petaluma, California, in the course of about US$7 billion.
It was the most priceless acquisition made at hand Cisco to date, and only the
acquisition of Precise Atlanta has been larger. A few acquired companies
get grown into $1Bn+ responsibility units for the purpose Cisco, including LAN switching,
Purpose Turn over Internet Conduct (VOIP), and dwelling-place networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In late Cortege 2000, at the apogee of the dot-com boom, Cisco router was the most
valuable attendance in the world, with a peddle capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a exchange cover humbly of about US$108.03 billion,
it is pacify one of the most valuable companies.

The group was a 2002-03 recipient of the Ron Brown Award, a U.S.
presidential honor to concede companies "in search the exemplary quality
of their relationships with employees and communities".