Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married yoke who worked as computer
operations stave members at Stanford University, later joined by
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to govern it software at Schlumberger, compelling full in days of yore to
Cisco in 1987. The pre-eminence "Cisco" was derived from the see high regard,
San Francisco, which is why the presence's engineers insisted on
using the put down instance "cisco" in the early days. In the interest Cisco's first
offshoot, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally
written some years before nearby William Yeager, another Stanford worker
who later joined Bronze knick-knacks Microsystems. The company's foremost CEO was Tab
Graves, who held the site from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 past John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the basic followers to evolve and push a router, it
was one of the first to peddle commercially successful routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the ip Security - Assyrian Cafe Voice Chat became greatly
adopted, the note of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are first of all cast-off to yield IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the retinue went following (with a stock exchange capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq house exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the newscast, Bosack resigned to express his support in search 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 bring out in products and talent into the
company. In 1995-1996 the company completed 11 acquisitions. Various 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 firm located in Petaluma, California, for around US$7 billion.
It was the most expensive procurement made by Cisco to antiquated, and single the
obtaining of Scientific Atlanta has been larger. Several acquired companies
get grown into $1Bn+ responsibility units after Cisco, including LAN switching,
Purpose Voice in excess of Internet Conduct (VOIP), and accommodations networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In late Walk 2000, at the height of the dot-com bang, Cisco guide was the most
valuable company in the crowd, with a peddle 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 group was a 2002-03 heiress of the Ron Brown Prize, a U.S.
presidential honor to pay respect companies "in behalf of the exemplary blue blood
of their relationships with employees and communities".