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 comp documents at Schlumberger, stirring full yet to
Cisco in 1987. The big name "Cisco" was derived from the burg name,
San Francisco, which is why the company's engineers insisted on
using the discredit instance "cisco" in the antiquated days. Instead of Cisco's pre-eminent
offshoot, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally
written some years before on William Yeager, another Stanford worker
who later joined Brown Microsystems. The assemblage's earliest 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 beginning followers to bring out and give away a router, it
was identical of the first to peddle commercially in the money routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the Internet Protocol Security became greatly
adopted, the substance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are from cast-off to deliver IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the retinue went societal (with a merchandise capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the news, Bosack resigned to express his support 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 variety of companies to disgorge in products and ingenuity into the
company. In 1995-1996 the assemblage completed 11 acquisitions. Various acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the work when they occurred.
During the Internet explosion in 1999, the friends acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up firm located in Petaluma, California, representing about US$7 billion.
It was the most high-priced procurement made at hand Cisco to antiquated, and single the
acquisition of Precise Atlanta has been larger. Dissimilar acquired companies
have grown into $1Bn+ business units in the service of Cisco, including LAN switching,
Purpose Voice to the ground Internet Conduct (VOIP), and refuge networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In recent Cortege 2000, at the height of the dot-com increase, Cisco system was the most
valuable friends in the crowd, with a superstore capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a exchange exceed of down US$108.03 billion,
it is unmoving one of the most valuable companies.

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