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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 not 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 booming 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 dollars **. In 2006, with a market cap of about 110 billion dollars, 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 of 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 the 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. Cisco provides certifications to professionals in the networking field. These include: The company has its corporate headquarters in San Jose, California and also many outposts in other countries. Executives John Chambers is currently the President and CEO. Other senior executives include: Origin of the Cisco name The name "Cisco" is an abbreviation of San Fran'''''cisco'''''. According to John Morgridge, employee 34 and the company's former president, the founders hit on the name and logo while driving to Sacramento to register the company -- they saw the Golden Gate Bridge framed in the sunlight *. The name cisco Systems (with the lowercase "c") continued in use within the engineering community at the company long after the official company name was changed to Cisco Systems, Inc. Users of Cisco products can still see the name ciscoSystems occasionally in bug reports and IOS messages. The company's logo reflects its San Francisco name heritage: it represents a stylized Golden Gate Bridge. In October 2006, Cisco publicly launched a new logo. The revised logo is graphically simpler and more stylized than the original. Corporate acquisitions For a list and discussion of Cisco's acquisitions, see Cisco Systems acquisitions. Criticisms While a successful company in many ways, Cisco is not without its controversies. Cisco recently reached a settlement in a long-standing class action lawsuit that originated in 2001, "The original suit, filed April 20, 2001, claimed that the company made misleading statements, or omitted statements of material fact, that were relied on by purchasers of Cisco stock. It also alleged that the individual defendants sold Cisco stock while in possession of material, non-public information. Cisco denied all allegations in the suit." While Cisco denies all wrongdoing in the suit, they agreed to settle with the plaintiffs. Cisco's liability insurers, its directors and officers paid the plaintiffs $91.75 million to settle the suit. Another point of controversy surrounding the company is its involvement in restricting freedoms in the People's Republic of China. Cisco supplied the Chinese government with internet infrastructure equipment that is used to block websites. Cisco has yet to answer on whether it supports the use of its technology for political oppression and the limiting of free speech on the Internet. Cisco does not customize, or develop specialized or unique filtering capabilities, in order to enable different regimes to block access to information and Cisco sells the same equipment in China as it sells worldwide.* A partial list of products See also | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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