Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married several who worked as computer
operations team members at Stanford University, later joined by
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to command computer software at Schlumberger, stirring entire yet to
Cisco in 1987. The pre-eminence "Cisco" was derived from the burg name,
San Francisco, which is why the assemblage's engineers insisted on
using the lower case "cisco" in the prehistoric days. For Cisco's earliest
offering, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the beginning
written some years in front by William Yeager, another Stanford employee
who later joined Bronze knick-knacks Microsystems. The assemblage's beginning CEO was Bill
Graves, who held the position from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 by John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the beginning company to develop and give away a router, it
was one of the oldest to retail commercially well-heeled routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the Internet Protocol Guide became everywhere
adopted, the substance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are from acclimatized to disburden IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the company went following (with a market capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq house exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the announcement, Bosack resigned to exhibit his shore up in search 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 selection of companies to bring in products and proclivity into the
company. In 1995-1996 the assemblage completed 11 acquisitions. Various acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the production when they occurred.
During the Internet explosion in 1999, the company acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up company located in Petaluma, California, in the course of around US$7 billion.
It was the most up-market acquirement made by Cisco to latest, and single the
purchase of Orderly Atlanta has been larger. Several acquired companies
include grown into $1Bn+ subject units for the purpose Cisco, including LAN switching,
Enterprise Turn over Internet Usage (VOIP), and dwelling-place networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In fashionable Cortege 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom, Cisco asa was the most
valuable company in the world, with a superstore capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a exchange cover humbly of about US$108.03 billion,
it is pacify whole of the most valuable companies.

The circle was a 2002-03 legatee of the Ron Brown Award, a U.S.
presidential honor to recognize companies "in behalf of the meritorious worth
of their relationships with employees and communities".