Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married a handful of who worked as computer
operations stave members at Stanford University, later joined by
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to tell comp software at Schlumberger, stirring well-shaped yet to
Cisco in 1987. The name "Cisco" was derived from the burg luminary,
San Francisco, which is why the company's engineers insisted on
using the put down lawsuit "cisco" in the near the start days. As a service to Cisco's first
product, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the start
written some years earlier on William Yeager, another Stanford hand
who later joined Brown Microsystems. The retinue's foremost CEO was Tabulation
Graves, who held the placement from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 by John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the first party to develop and push a router, it
was a given of the pre-eminent to sell commercially famous routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the Internet Protocol Safe became thoroughly
adopted, the account of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are from acclimatized to disburden IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the company went public (with a merchandise capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq house exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the expos‚, Bosack resigned to conduct his support 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 variety of companies to bring 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 production when they occurred.
During the Internet prosperity in 1999, the corporation acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up company located in Petaluma, California, throughout fro US$7 billion.
It was the most priceless possessions made nearby Cisco to boy, and only the
obtaining of Precise Atlanta has been larger. Dissimilar acquired companies
get grown into $1Bn+ responsibility units in the service of Cisco, including LAN switching,
Eagerness Turn to the ground Internet Usage (VOIP), and dwelling-place networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In dilatory Parade 2000, at the apex of the dot-com increase, Cisco ppt was the most
valuable company in the crowd, with a superstore capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a exchange exceed of about US$108.03 billion,
it is pacify individual of the most valuable companies.

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