Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple 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 tell java docs at Schlumberger, stirring occupied in days of yore to
Cisco in 1987. The delegate "Cisco" was derived from the burg name,
San Francisco, which is why the assemblage's engineers insisted on
using the lower if it happens "cisco" in the prehistoric days. As a service to Cisco's initial
output, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally
written some years before nearby William Yeager, another Stanford wage-earner
who later joined Bronze knick-knacks Microsystems. The company's first CEO was Banknote
Graves, who held the site from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 by John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the beginning party to develop and give away a router, it
was one of the pre-eminent to sell commercially well-heeled routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the Internet Protocol Books became widely
adopted, the substance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are first of all cast-off to disburden IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the retinue 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 expos‚, Bosack resigned to exhibit his shore up for her.
Bosack and his old lady walked away from Cisco with $170 million, 70% of which was
committed to charities. The two later divorced.

Cisco acquired a medley of companies to bring out in products and tendency into the
company. In 1995-1996 the attendance completed 11 acquisitions. A number of 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 assemblage located in Petaluma, California, representing fro US$7 billion.
It was the most up-market possessions made nearby Cisco to latest, and single the
possessions of Precise Atlanta has been larger. Dissimilar acquired companies
be undergoing grown into $1Bn+ responsibility units for Cisco, including LAN switching,
Enterprise Utter to the ground Internet Etiquette (VOIP), and refuge networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In dilatory Cortege 2000, at the apogee of the dot-com boom, Cisco voip was the most
valuable gathering in the the world at large, with a market capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a vend exceed of down US$108.03 billion,
it is restful whole of the most valuable companies.

The comrades was a 2002-03 legatee of the Ron Brown Prize, a U.S.
presidential honor to accept companies "an eye to the superior property
of their relationships with employees and communities".