CISCO SYSTEM

Cisco Systems, Inc.  is an American-based multinational corporation that designs and

sells consumer electronics, networking and communications technology and services.

Headquartered in San Jose, California, Cisco has more than 65,000 employees and annual

revenue of US$40.0 billion as of 2010. The stock was added to the Dow Jones Industrial

Average on June 8, 2009, and is also included in the S&P 500 Index the Russell 1000

Index, NASDAQ100 Index and the Russell 1000 Growth Stock Index. Cisco is one of

the world's biggest technology corporations.

History

Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple who worked as computer operations

staff members at Stanford University, later joined by Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in

1984. Lerner moved on to direct computer services at Schlumberger, moving full time to Cisco

in 1987. The name "Cisco" was derived from the city name, San Francisco, which is why the

company's engineers insisted on using the lower case "cisco" in the early days. For Cisco's first

product, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally written some years before

by William Yeager, another Stanford employee who later joined Sun Microsystems. The

company's first CEO was Bill Graves, who held the position from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John

Morgridge was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 by John Chambers.

While Cisco was not the first company to develop and sell a router, it was one of the first

to sell commercially successful routers supporting multiple network protocols. As the Internet

Protocol (IP) became widely adopted, the importance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today,

Cisco's largest routers are primarily used to deliver IP packets.

 In 1990, the company was listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Lerner was fired; as a

result Bosack quit after receiving $200 million. Most of those profits were given to charities and

the two later divorced.

Cisco acquired a variety of companies to bring in products and talent into the company.

Several acquisitions, such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the industry when they

occurred. During the Internet boom in 1999, the company acquired Cerent Corporation, a start-

up company located in Petaluma, California, for about US$7 billion. It was the most expensive

acquisition made by Cisco to date, and only the acquisition of Scientific-Atlanta has been larger.

Several acquired companies have grown into $1Bn+ business units for Cisco, including LAN

switching, Enterprise Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP), and home networking. Cisco

acquired Linksys in 2003.

In late March 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom, Cisco was the most valuable

company in the world, with a market capitalization of more than US$500 billion. In July 2009,

with a market cap of about US$108.03 billion,  it is still one of the most valuable companies.

The company was a 2002-03 recipient of the Ron Brown Award, a U.S. presidential

honor to recognize companies "for the exemplary quality of their relationships with employees

and communities". In 2010, Cisco bought Starent Networks a mobile technology company and

Moto Development Group, a product design consulting firm that helped develop Cisco's Flip

video camera.

The Company has built its Globalization Centre East in Bangalore for $1 billion and 20%

of Cisco's leaders will be based there.

Mission Statement

Shape the future of the Internet by creating unprecedented value and opportunity for our

customers, employees, investors, and ecosystem partners.

Products

 Routers

 Switches

 Wireless

 Security

 Physical Security and Building Systems

 Optical Networking

 Network Management and Automation

 Cisco IOS and NX-OS Software

 Interfaces and Modules

 Collaboration

 WebEx

 TelePresence

 Video and Content Delivery

 Voice and Unified Communications

 Service Exchange

 Universal Gateways
Strengths

 Asset leverage

 Market share leadership

 Strong management team

 Strong brand equity

 Strong financial position

 Well planned Channel Network

 Technology Leadership

 Human Network

Distinctive Competencies

Their collaboration with other companies plays as a very important competitive edge over

competitors.