Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married a handful of 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 comp docs at Schlumberger, stirring well-shaped yet to
Cisco in 1987. The delegate "Cisco" was derived from the burg name,
San Francisco, which is why the presence's engineers insisted on
using the cut case "cisco" in the early days. Instead of Cisco's initial
offshoot, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the beginning
written some years in front on William Yeager, another Stanford worker
who later joined Bronze knick-knacks Microsystems. The company's earliest CEO was Tab
Graves, who held the stance from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 via John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the basic followers to evolve and sell a router, it
was a given of the first to peddle commercially successful routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the Internet Protocol Books became thoroughly
adopted, the note of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are especially acclimatized to transport IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the assemblage went public (with a superstore capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq house exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the news, Bosack resigned to express his support suitable 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 variety of companies to disgorge in products and tendency into the
company. In 1995-1996 the convention completed 11 acquisitions. Several acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the industry when they occurred.
During the Internet blast in 1999, the company acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up assemblage located in Petaluma, California, in the course of about US$7 billion.
It was the most high-priced procurement made at hand Cisco to latest, and simply the
acquisition of Precise Atlanta has been larger. A number of acquired companies
include grown into $1Bn+ subject units for Cisco, including LAN switching,
Adventurousness Turn as a remainder Internet Usage (VOIP), and dwelling-place networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In recent Parade 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom, Cisco ios was the most
valuable friends in the the world at large, with a vend capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a exchange cap of down US$108.03 billion,
it is still one of the most valuable companies.

The comrades was a 2002-03 heiress of the Ron Brown Trophy, a U.S.
presidential honor to pay respect companies "in behalf of the superior property
of their relationships with employees and communities".