Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple who worked as computer
operations shaft members at Stanford University, later joined by
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to direct network software at Schlumberger, compelling full for the nonce at once to
Cisco in 1987. The pre-eminence "Cisco" was derived from the burg name,
San Francisco, which is why the assemblage's engineers insisted on
using the lower lawsuit "cisco" in the early days. In the interest Cisco's pre-eminent
offering, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally
written some years in the vanguard on William Yeager, another Stanford wage-earner
who later joined Sunbathe Microsystems. The presence's earliest CEO was Tabulation
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 company to develop and push a router, it
was bromide of the sooner to peddle commercially well-heeled routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the Internet Protocol Suite became widely
adopted, the substance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are especially used to deliver IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the retinue went projected (with a merchandise capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq reservoir exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the announcement, Bosack resigned to conduct 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 medley of companies to bring out in products and talent into the
company. In 1995-1996 the convention completed 11 acquisitions. Divers acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the industry when they occurred.
During the Internet prosperity in 1999, the corporation acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up society located in Petaluma, California, representing about US$7 billion.
It was the most priceless procurement made at hand Cisco to boy, and only the
purchase of Orderly Atlanta has been larger. A number of acquired companies
get grown into $1Bn+ subject units in the service of Cisco, including LAN switching,
Purpose Voice as a remainder Internet Protocol (VOIP), and home networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In late Cortege 2000, at the height of the dot-com bang, Cisco router was the most
valuable gathering in the world, with a vend capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a market exceed of about US$108.03 billion,
it is pacify whole of the most valuable companies.

The group was a 2002-03 receiver of the Ron Brown Trophy, a U.S.
presidential honor to recognize companies "for the exemplary blue blood
of their relationships with employees and communities".