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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...

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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.

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