Friday, 16 August 2013

CISCO COMPANY- EARLY HISTORY

By Bob Bello


Cisco Systems, Inc. Is probably one of the best-known names in the networking industry. They are known not only for the design and make of network systems, but also for training some of the finest PC engineers and certifying their work.

The Cisco story begins in December 1984. 2 Stanford University PC staff members Leonard Bosack and Sandy Lerner. Bosack continued working with the College while getting the company up and started. Sadly , some of the router software authored by another engineer was employed in their activities. Bosack had to leave the University and face potential legal charges for burglary of intellectual property. Somehow that situation sorted itself out so that by 1987 Sanford had licensed 2 PC boards and software to Cisco.

The name Cisco was a shortening of San Francisco. In the earlier years when John Morgridge was Chief Executive Officer (until 1988) they didn't capitalize the company name as a kind of a trademark. Whatever the formula it worked good enough that by 1990 Cisco changed into a public company mentioned on the market. Unhappily this was also the year in which Bosack gave up his work at the company but still managed to pocket about $170 million, much of which was employed for charity.

The thing that put Cisco on the map was its ability to sell routers that supported 1 or 2 network protocols commercially. This made the Cisco system incredibly flexible, particularly it's operating system that they consistently modified to keep abreast of technology's ever grinding expansion and innovation. Some of these products became nearly sacred in the computer industry, and continued in production for 10 years before the requirement for other software support became obvious with the expansion of the service provider industry that required high volume abilities.

Like many PC corporations, Cisco grew in part by acquiring other companies including Mario Mazzola's Crescendo Communications. Through these acquisitions they managed to begin making changes in Ethernet design by utilizing harmonizing resources. This proved very successful until late 1990s. Of course the Net industry expansion in this decade did not hurt the company at all. They started producing slightly more routers and access shelves, each of which ISPs needed to flourish. They also creates some 'spin off ' companies that focused on specific types of work including software design and processing cards.

While this is only a peek at Cisco's early years, there is no querying the ongoing significance of Cisco in the Net world. Their place in history is strongly established and thus far they show no evidence of slowing down.




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