Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple who worked as computer
operations team members at Stanford University, later joined nearby
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to direct comp documents at Schlumberger, stirring full time to
Cisco in 1987. The big name "Cisco" was derived from the city luminary,
San Francisco, which is why the assemblage's engineers insisted on
using the discredit if it happens "cisco" in the early days. For Cisco's first
product, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally
written some years earlier sooner than William Yeager, another Stanford employee
who later joined Bronze knick-knacks Microsystems. The presence's earliest CEO was Bill
Graves, who held the stance from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 by way of John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the original followers to expose and sell a router, it
was bromide of the first to peddle commercially successful routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the Internet Protocol Manual became widely
adopted, the note of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are primarily cast-off to transport IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the group went societal (with a merchandise capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq reservoir exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the expos‚, Bosack resigned to conduct his shore up for 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 talent into the
company. In 1995-1996 the company completed 11 acquisitions. Divers acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the industry when they occurred.
During the Internet prosperity in 1999, the corporation acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up firm located in Petaluma, California, representing on every side US$7 billion.
It was the most high-priced acquirement made by means of Cisco to date, and simply the
purchase of Orderly Atlanta has been larger. Several acquired companies
have grown into $1Bn+ responsibility units for Cisco, including LAN switching,
Eagerness Voice as a remainder Internet Etiquette (VOIP), and dwelling-place networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In dilatory March 2000, at the apogee of the dot-com prosper, Cisco system was the most
valuable friends in the the world at large, with a superstore capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a market exceed of hither US$108.03 billion,
it is still individual of the most valuable companies.

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