Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married several who worked as computer
operations staff members at Stanford University, later joined next to
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to govern computer services at Schlumberger, moving entire time to
Cisco in 1987. The pre-eminence "Cisco" was derived from the city name,
San Francisco, which is why the assemblage's engineers insisted on
using the cut instance "cisco" in the antiquated days. For Cisco's initial
offering, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally
written some years in front nearby William Yeager, another Stanford worker
who later joined Bronze knick-knacks Microsystems. The presence's earliest CEO was Banknote
Graves, who held the site 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 beginning party to expose and convinced a router, it
was bromide of the first to flog betray commercially in the money routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the ip Suite became widely
adopted, the account of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are primarily acclimatized to deliver IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the retinue went following (with a market capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq reservoir exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the newscast, Bosack resigned to express his reinforce suitable 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 medley of companies to bring in products and talent into the
company. In 1995-1996 the convention completed 11 acquisitions. A number of acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the work when they occurred.
During the Internet prosperity in 1999, the performers acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up firm located in Petaluma, California, representing around US$7 billion.
It was the most high-priced acquirement made by Cisco to antiquated, and simply the
obtaining of Orderly Atlanta has been larger. Several acquired companies
include grown into $1Bn+ business units after Cisco, including LAN switching,
Adventurousness Turn in excess of Internet Conduct (VOIP), and dwelling-place networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In fashionable Walk 2000, at the height of the dot-com bang, Cisco asa was the most
valuable attendance in the crowd, with a market capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a vend exceed of down US$108.03 billion,
it is still individual of the most valuable companies.

The group was a 2002-03 legatee of the Ron Brown Present, a U.S.
presidential honor to accept companies "in behalf of the meritorious property
of their relationships with employees and communities".