History of Cisco

Cisco systems derive its name from San Francisco city. Cisco Systems were founded back in the year 1984, by Richard Troiano together with Sandy Lerner and Len Bosack who were a married couple.

The couple was by then working as computer operators at Stanford University. Len was heading the department of computer science while sandy was managing computers at the Graduate School of Business. Initially, their work was restricted to Stanford campus where they were networking various departments. By then, it was operating informally back in the early 1980s.It was then that the Xerox Palo Alto Research center provided the Stanford University with some Ethernet boards for networking and some workstations.

The research center was well advanced in the workstations but the pioneers of Cisco Systems were more inspired by the networking boards of Ethernet. The staff members, together with the graduate students at Stanford University came up with a technology. This technology enabled them to link various computers in different departments together such that they were in a position to talk to one another.Their very initial design was a tiny box which they used as a multi protocol router.

This device enabled computers of different makes to access the internet and communicate with each other. The tiny box was known as the Blue Box. A version of the Blue Box was then developed which was capable of routing several protocols even the internet burgeoning protocol that allowed exchange of data between workstations, servers, main frames and printers. In fact, the software became standard at the university and there were about twenty four Blue Boxes networked across the university.Their demand was growing within the university as well as other universities (Goralski, 2002). In the year 1985, Lerner and Bosack assembled routers in their house which was located in Atherton.

Their design was a new version of the Blue Box and thus the Cisco’s router was similar to the one found at the university. Bosack embarked on selling both the software and the hardware. Though the software was not much complex, it was a very useful operating system. In 1986 Bosack’s supervisor in the department of computer science claimed that he was misappropriating the resources of the university to finance Cisco Systems.Investigations were then carried out and he was found guilty of misconduct and was given the option of either working for the university or for Cisco. Together with Lougheed they resigned on 11th July the same year.

At Cisco, they were joined by other Stanford members, such as Lerner, Greg Satz who was a programmer at the university and Richard Toriano (O'Reilly, 2000). Sandy had moved to Schlumberger as a computer services director before joining Cisco Systems on full time basis.In order to increase the level of talent, creativity and innovation in the company, Cisco Systems acquired several companies such as Stratacom and Cerent Corporation. This made Cisco Systems to grow in revenue and capacity giving it an added advantage over its competitors. In fact by the year 2000, Cisco Systems was ranked first in terms of the company with the greatest value in the world and in January 2009, it was still ranked as one of the companies in the world with great value (O'Reilly, 2000).Although there were other companies that were developing and selling routers, Cisco Systems became the first company in the world to develop and sell routers in a commercially successful manner.

With the increase in the adoption of the Internet Protocol, the multi protocol routing importance dropped significantly. Within no time, Cisco Systems became one of the fastest expanding companies in the world. It led the way in the provision of equipment of networking connecting the internet.Between the years 1995-2001, Cisco’s role was mainly limited to data center and the provision of fundamental external connections to outside networks from the data center. Later on, especially between the years 2002 – 2005, Cisco Systems made a crucial move towards the data center.

This was a major success that made the company within only a span of three years to achieve substantially especially in the leadership of the market (O'Reilly, 2000). By the year 2006, Cisco Systems further widened its base in the data center segment after it introduced the Application Networking Services.This clearly marked a turning point in the life of the company. It started to develop networks which helped the applications of data center to be automated and thus performing much better. Such products included the Wide Area Application Services and the Application Control Engine.

In the year 2007, Cisco Systems made major improvements in its management and coordination of data center when VFrame was introduced. This is a software application that can link data between the networking facility, server and the storage facilities. This software application provides a channel in which the resources needed are quickly viewed.This helps significantly in the automation set up and the tasks of maintenance.

This application in fact shows that Cisco Systems was beginning to view data center in a more holistic way (Goralski, 2002). Cisco Systems in January 2008 unveiled Nexus 7000 series which is the company’s switch for networking and consolidating networks within a data center. It also enables the server in its virtualization task. The powerfully built and high-speed switch is definitely the best product that Cisco Systems has come up with in the last four years.In April the same year, Cisco Systems acquired Nuova Systems which was a subsidiary; its main focus was that of networking technologies that could unify communications of data centers and helping the server in the virtualization of operations more efficiently. The company later in the year launched a new sales program that enabled it in the cultivation of support services so as to deal with challenges of data center more expansively (O'Reilly, 2000).

Cisco Systems started as a small organization in at the Stanford University and as discussed above, has made so much progress within a relatively short time.This has mainly been facilitated by its owners’ hard work and determination. Its expansion was further fastened by the boom in the computer industry which was growing faster than any other sector in the world. By the year 2000, it had an employee population of about thirty four thousand workers. It also became the routers largest manufacturer in the entire globe. Cisco Systems derives about eighty percent of all its revenue from online transactions which are available on the company’s website.

Cisco Systems is a major service provider especially of voice and internet protocol to many enterprises allover the world. The company is currently making several acquisitions to enable it penetrate the market of the home user. It is also partnering with companies such as Yahoo and Skype to enable it integrate the consumer voice internet protocol services with codeless and wireless phones. In that case, the company is extending its expertise in networking technology and is bringing about growth of consumer markets.