Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married several who worked as computer
operations stave members at Stanford University, later joined nearby
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to govern it soft at Schlumberger, stirring well-shaped time to
Cisco in 1987. The name "Cisco" was derived from the see luminary,
San Francisco, which is why the presence's engineers insisted on
using the put down if it happens "cisco" in the early days. For Cisco's pre-eminent
output, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the word go
written some years before nearby William Yeager, another Stanford employee
who later joined Sunbathe Microsystems. The retinue's first CEO was Tab
Graves, who held the placement from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 by John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the basic followers to expose and convinced a router, it
was identical of the oldest to peddle commercially in the money routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the ip Safe became thoroughly
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 group went societal (with a merchandise capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq inventory exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the announcement, Bosack resigned to show his shore up for 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 attract in products and proclivity into the
company. In 1995-1996 the attendance completed 11 acquisitions. Several acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the effort when they occurred.
During the Internet prosperity in 1999, the friends acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up society located in Petaluma, California, throughout around US$7 billion.
It was the most priceless acquisition made at hand Cisco to boy, and single the
obtaining of Well-controlled Atlanta has been larger. A number of acquired companies
have grown into $1Bn+ responsibility units after Cisco, including LAN switching,
Enterprise Voice as a remainder Internet Etiquette (VOIP), and home networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In late March 2000, at the crest of the dot-com bang, Cisco asa was the most
valuable attendance in the the world at large, with a market capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a market cap of hither US$108.03 billion,
it is pacify one of the most valuable companies.

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