Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple who worked as computer
operations staff members at Stanford University, later joined before
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to govern it docs at Schlumberger, stirring well-shaped time to
Cisco in 1987. The name "Cisco" was derived from the municipality high regard,
San Francisco, which is why the assemblage's engineers insisted on
using the discredit case "cisco" in the near the start days. As a service to Cisco's initial
offshoot, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the word go
written some years before nearby William Yeager, another Stanford employee
who later joined Sunbathe Microsystems. The company's foremost CEO was Bill
Graves, who held the placement 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 party to expose and give away a router, it
was a given of the oldest to retail commercially well-heeled routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the Internet Protocol Manual became widely
adopted, the account of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are from cast-off to deliver IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the group went public (with a stock exchange capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the newscast, Bosack resigned to exhibit his funding in compensation 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 selection of companies to attract in products and tendency into the
company. In 1995-1996 the company completed 11 acquisitions. Several acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the effort when they occurred.
During the Internet explosion in 1999, the corporation acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up firm located in Petaluma, California, for about US$7 billion.
It was the most up-market acquirement made at hand Cisco to boy, and at best the
obtaining of Well-controlled Atlanta has been larger. Several acquired companies
get grown into $1Bn+ business units after Cisco, including LAN switching,
Enterprise Voice to the ground Internet Etiquette (VOIP), and home networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In dilatory March 2000, at the apogee of the dot-com increase, Cisco ios was the most
valuable attendance in the existence, with a peddle capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a market cap of about US$108.03 billion,
it is restful whole of the most valuable companies.

The circle was a 2002-03 receiver of the Ron Brown Prize, a U.S.
presidential honor to pay respect companies "in behalf of the superior quality
of their relationships with employees and communities".