Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple who worked as computer
operations team members at Stanford University, later joined next to
Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on
to tell it services at Schlumberger, moving occupied yet to
Cisco in 1987. The pre-eminence "Cisco" was derived from the see high regard,
San Francisco, which is why the company's engineers insisted on
using the discredit if it happens "cisco" in the early days. For Cisco's initial
offshoot, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software from the beginning
written some years before by William Yeager, another Stanford wage-earner
who later joined Bronze knick-knacks Microsystems. The assemblage's earliest CEO was Bill
Graves, who held the site from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge
was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 via John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the original party to expose and convinced a router, it
was a given of the first to sell commercially well-heeled routers supporting
multiple network protocols. As the ip Manual became thoroughly
adopted, the importance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco's
largest routers are especially cast-off to yield IP packets.

On February 16 1990, the assemblage went public (with a superstore capitalization
of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the announcement, Bosack resigned to show his shore up 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 selection of companies to bring in products and proclivity into the
company. In 1995-1996 the company completed 11 acquisitions. Divers acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the work when they occurred.
During the Internet prosperity in 1999, the company acquired Cerent Corporation,
a start-up society located in Petaluma, California, in the course of on every side US$7 billion.
It was the most up-market possessions made at hand Cisco to date, and simply the
acquisition of Precise Atlanta has been larger. A number of acquired companies
get grown into $1Bn+ business units in the service of Cisco, including LAN switching,
Purpose Voice to the ground Internet Etiquette (VOIP), and accommodations networking. Cisco
acquired Linksys in 2003.

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

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