Cisco

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO, SEHK: 4333) is a global company headquartered in San Jose, California, that designs and sells networking and communications technology and services under three brands: Cisco, Linksys, and Scientific Atlanta. more...

Home
Cables, Connectors
Filers, Load Balancers
Home Networking, Cable & DSL
Hubs
KVM Switch Boxes, Cables
Mainframe, DEC, VAX, AS/400
Network Interface Cards,...
Networking, Telecom Tools
Other Networking Equipment
Print Servers, Wired
Racks, Mounts & Patch Panels
Router Components, Memory
Routers, Wired
3Com
Cabletron
Cisco
Cisco 1600 Series
Cisco 1601
Cisco 1602
Cisco 1603
Cisco 1604
Cisco 1605
Other Cisco 1600 Series
Cisco 1700 Series
Cisco 1720
Cisco 1721
Other Cisco 1700 Series
Cisco 2500 Series
Cisco 2501
Cisco 2502
Cisco 2503
Cisco 2504
Cisco 2507
Cisco 2511
Cisco 2514
Cisco 2524
Cisco 2525
Other Cisco 2500 Series
Cisco 2600 Series
Cisco 2610
Cisco 2611
Cisco 2612
Cisco 2620
Cisco 2621
Cisco 2650
Other Cisco 2600 Series
Cisco 3600 Series
Cisco 3620
Cisco 3640
Other Cisco 3600 Series
Cisco 3700 Series
Cisco 7000 Series
Cisco 7200 Series
Cisco 7204
Cisco 7206
Other Cisco 7200 Series
Cisco 7500 Series
Cisco 7204
Cisco 7505
Other Cisco 7500 Series
Cisco 800 Series
Cisco Voice Over IP, VolP
Other Cisco Routers
D-Link Professional Routers
Efficient Networks
Extreme
Foundry
HP, Hewlett Packard
Juniper
Linksys Professional Routers
Lucent, Ascend
Marconi / Fore Systems
Netgear Professional Routers
Nortel, Bay Networks
Other Routers
Redback
SMC
Security, Firewall, VPN
Server Components, Memory
Servers
Software
Software, Operating Systems
Storage Equipment, NAS, SAN
Switch Components, Memory
Switches
Telephone Systems, Telecom
UPS, Power Protection, APC
Wholesale Lots
Wireless Networking, WiFi
Workstation Components,...
Workstations, Terminals

Initially, Cisco manufactured only enterprise multi-protocol routers, but today Cisco's products can be found everywhere from the living room to the enterprise to service provider networks.

Cisco's vision is "Changing the Way We Live, Work, Play and Learn." Cisco's current tagline is "Welcome to the human network."

Corporate history

Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner (Bachelor of Science from California State University, Chico, Masters in Econometrics from Claremont University, Masters in Statistics and Computer Science from Stanford University), a married couple that worked in computer operations staff at Stanford University, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally written by William Yeager, another staff employee who had begun the work years before Bosack arrived from the University of Pennsylvania, where Bosack had received his bachelor's degree.

While Cisco was the first company to develop and sell a router (a device that forwards computer traffic from one network to another), it did create the first commercially successful multi-protocol router to allow previously incompatible computers to communicate using different network protocols. As the Internet Protocol (IP) has become a standard, the importance of multi-protocol routing as a function has declined. Today, Cisco's largest routers are marketed to route primarily IP packets and MPLS frames.

In 1990, the company went public and was listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Bosack and Lerner walked away from the company with $170 million and later divorced.

During the Internet boom in 1999, the company acquired Cerent Corp., a start-up company located in Petaluma, California, for about $7 billion. It was the most expensive acquisition made by Cisco at that time. The only bigger acquisition is Scientific Atlanta.

In late March 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom, Cisco was the most valuable company in the world, with a market capitalisation of more than $500 billion . In 2006, with a market cap of about $110 billion, it is still one of the most valuable companies .

Using acquisitions, internal development, and partnering with other companies, Cisco has made inroads into many network equipment markets outside routing, including Ethernet switching, remote access, branch office routers, ATM networking, security, IP telephony, and others. In 2003, Cisco acquired Linksys, a popular manufacturer of computer networking hardware and positioned it as a leading brand for the home and end user networking market (SOHO).

Cisco has set up Cisco Networking Academies in 150 countries aimed at teaching students to design and maintain computer networks.

Read more at Wikipedia.org