Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple who worked as computer
operations stave members at Stanford University, later joined before
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to direct computer hardware at Schlumberger, compelling full time to
Cisco in 1987. The name "Cisco" was derived from the city name,
San Francisco, which is why the assemblage's engineers insisted on
using the put down instance "cisco" in the prehistoric days. In the interest Cisco's first
offshoot, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the word go
written some years in front on William Yeager, another Stanford worker
who later joined Sun Microsystems. The retinue's earliest CEO was Tabulation
Graves, who held the position from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 past John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the first party to bring out and give away a router, it
was a given of the pre-eminent to retail commercially successful routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the ip Docs became widely
adopted, the substance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are primarily reach-me-down to deliver IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the group went societal (with a market capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq inventory exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the news, Bosack resigned to express his reinforce 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 bring in products and ingenuity into the
company. In 1995-1996 the company completed 11 acquisitions. Various acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the effort when they occurred.
During the Internet boom in 1999, the performers acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up society located in Petaluma, California, in the course of on every side US$7 billion.
It was the most up-market acquisition made nearby Cisco to date, and only the
possessions of Well-controlled Atlanta has been larger. Dissimilar acquired companies
have grown into $1Bn+ business units for Cisco, including LAN switching,
Purpose Utter to the ground Internet Etiquette (VOIP), and accommodations networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In recent Walk 2000, at the crest of the dot-com prosper, Cisco manual was the most
valuable gathering in the world, with a superstore capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a hawk cover humbly of about US$108.03 billion,
it is unmoving one of the most valuable companies.

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