When was cisco started

It also bundles its security products with its networking hardware and software, which gives it tremendous leverage against smaller stand-alone security companies like Fire Eye NASDAQ:FEYE -- which is frequently cited as a potential takeover target for the company.

Cisco provides free training to thousands through its Cisco Networking Academy Program. Cisco Networking Academy also known as NetAcad launched in October with 64 educational institutions in seven states, the Networking Academy has spread to more than countries.

Since its inception, over 1. The Cisco Networking Academy Program is a comprehensive e-learning program that provides students with the Internet technology skills essential in a global economy. The Networking Academy delivers web-based content, online assessment, student performance tracking, hands-on labs, instructor training and support, and preparation for industry standard certification.

At the time, Cisco stated that connecting those cameras to the internet would allow "people to share, publish, and [easily] get access to video," which fit its "vision of visual networking.

But just like GoPro's cameras, Flip video cameras were gradually rendered obsolete by smartphones -- and Cisco quietly killed the Flip two years later. These technologies strengthened Cisco's service provider video and collaboration products, but the set-top boxes themselves were a dead weight on its top line growth. That's also why Cisco has reported two sets of top line results over the past few quarters.

Although Cisco had a high rate of sales growth, the young company was still short of cash; in Bosack and Lerner were forced to turn to a venture capitalist, Donald T. Valentine of Sequoia Capital, for support. Valentine, however, required that the owners surrender to him a controlling stake in the company.

Valentine thus became chairperson and then hired an outsider, John Morgridge, as the company's new president and chief executive officer. Morgridge, who had an M. Morgridge replaced several Cisco managers, who were friends of Bosack and Lerner, with more qualified and experienced executives.

In February , Cisco went public, after which Bosack and Lerner began selling their shares. Under Morgridge, Bosack had been given the title of chief scientist and Lerner was made head of customer service. However, Lerner reportedly did not get along well with Morgridge and, in August , she was fired, whereupon Bosack also quit.

The couple subsequently gave away the majority of their profits to their favorite charities. Meanwhile, Morgridge built up a direct sales force to market the products to corporate clients. At first, Cisco's corporate clients were the scientific departments of companies which already maintained large internal networks. Later, Cisco was able to market its products to all kinds of major corporations to help them link the computer systems of their headquarters, regional, and branch offices.

As Cisco's client base grew, the company's greatest challenge became meeting customer support service needs. The large size of the network systems for which Cisco supplied products made the user support task especially complex. The company grew at a tremendous rate as its market rapidly expanded. In the early s, companies of all sizes were installing local area networks LANs of personal computers.

As such, the potential market for linking these networks, either with each other or with existing minicomputers and mainframe computers, also grew. In , Fortune magazine rated Cisco as the second fastest growing company in the United States.

In its role as the leading internetworking router provider, Cisco could redefine and expand the market as it grew. While new communications technologies became widespread, Cisco adapted and added the capabilities of handling new protocols to its products. By August , Cisco had decided not to develop a rival protocol, because IBM made it clear that APPN would be a more open, multivendor protocol than originally intended.

The emergence of asynchronous transfer mode ATM technology as a new standard method for multiprotocol data communications posed a challenge to Cisco and the router industry.

ATM is a cell-switching technique that can provide high-speed communications of data, voice, video, and images without the use of routers. Cisco also became one of the four founding members of the ATM Forum to help define the emerging standard. In February , Cisco announced a strategy to include ATM among the protocols supported by its products. In fiscal , Cisco introduced its first ATM switch. In June of that year, Cisco introduced a new low-end, lower-priced product line, the Cisco router family.

The Cisco was aimed at companies desiring to link their smaller, remote branches or even remote individual employees, but unwilling to pay a premium price. Also during this time, the first network with over 1, Cisco routers was created. International sales became an important part of Cisco's business.

International sales steadily increased, accounting for Most of Cisco's international sales were through distributors, whereas in the United States the majority of sales 65 percent in early were made directly to the end users.

Cisco Systems shipped its first product in and is now a multi-national corporation, with over 35, employees in more than countries. Today, Cisco solutions are the networking foundations for service providers, small to medium business and enterprise customers which includes corporations, government agencies, utilities and educational institutions. Cisco's networking solutions connect people, computing devices and computer networks, allowing people to access or transfer information without regard to differences in time, place or type of computer system.