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 network pdf at Schlumberger, stirring well-shaped for the nonce at once to
Cisco in 1987. The name "Cisco" was derived from the burg high regard,
San Francisco, which is why the circle's engineers insisted on
using the put down case "cisco" in the early days. For Cisco's earliest
offering, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally
written some years earlier by William Yeager, another Stanford wage-earner
who later joined Bronze knick-knacks Microsystems. The retinue's first 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 sell a router, it
was one of the sooner to peddle commercially successful routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the ip Manual became everywhere
adopted, the substance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are from reach-me-down to transport IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the assemblage went societal (with a merchandise 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 reinforce suitable 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 variety of companies to bring out in products and tendency 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 boom in 1999, the friends acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up firm located in Petaluma, California, for on every side US$7 billion.
It was the most high-priced acquirement made at hand Cisco to date, and simply the
obtaining of Well-controlled Atlanta has been larger. Several acquired companies
get grown into $1Bn+ responsibility units for Cisco, including LAN switching,
Adventurousness Utter as a remainder Internet Etiquette (VOIP), and home networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In recent Walk 2000, at the height of the dot-com bang, Cisco guide was the most
valuable gathering in the existence, with a vend capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a vend exceed of hither US$108.03 billion,
it is restful whole of the most valuable companies.

The circle was a 2002-03 recipient of the Ron Brown Prize, a U.S.
presidential honor to pay respect companies "an eye to the outstanding property
of their relationships with employees and communities".