Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married yoke who worked as computer
operations stave members at Stanford University, later joined by
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to govern computer documents at Schlumberger, moving occupied yet to
Cisco in 1987. The name "Cisco" was derived from the municipality entitle,
San Francisco, which is why the circle's engineers insisted on
using the lower case "cisco" in the antiquated days. For Cisco's pre-eminent
product, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the beginning
written some years earlier nearby William Yeager, another Stanford worker
who later joined Sunbathe Microsystems. The retinue's first CEO was Banknote
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 basic followers to develop and give away a router, it
was one of the pre-eminent to sell commercially in the money routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the ip Suite became thoroughly
adopted, the substance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are first of all reach-me-down to transport IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the group 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 exhibit his shore up suitable 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 selection of companies to attract in products and proclivity into the
company. In 1995-1996 the convention completed 11 acquisitions. Various acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the effort when they occurred.
During the Internet blast in 1999, the corporation acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up firm located in Petaluma, California, for around US$7 billion.
It was the most priceless acquirement made nearby Cisco to antiquated, and at best the
obtaining of Orderly Atlanta has been larger. Several acquired companies
have grown into $1Bn+ province units in the service of Cisco, including LAN switching,
Enterprise Turn over Internet Usage (VOIP), and refuge networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

In dilatory Walk 2000, at the apex of the dot-com bang, Cisco voip was the most
valuable attendance in the the world at large, with a vend capitalization of more than
US$500 billion. In July 2009, with a hawk lid of on touching US$108.03 billion,
it is still one of the most valuable companies.

The company was a 2002-03 legatee of the Ron Brown Present, a U.S.
presidential honor to pay respect companies "in search the outstanding quality
of their relationships with employees and communities".