Cisco Systems Customers

At Cisco customers come first and an integral part of our DNA is creating long-lasting customer partnerships and working with them to identify their needs and provide solutions that support their success. The concept of solutions being driven to address specific customer challenges has been with Cisco since its inception. Husband and wife Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, both working for Stanford University, wanted to email each other from their respective offices located in different buildings but were unable to due to technological shortcomings.. A technology had to be invented to deal with disparate local area protocols; and as a result of solving their challenge - the multi-protocol router was born. Since then Cisco has shaped the future of the Internet by creating unprecedented value and opportunity for our customers, employees, investors and ecosystem partners and has become the worldwide leader in networking - transforming how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Richard Troiano later joined, found Cisco Systems in 1984.

Cisco has a proven track record of successfully capturing market transitions. Beginning in 1997 with the reality that Voice and Video would all be one, moving to the Networks of Networks in 2000 and the Network becoming the platform for all related technologies and the core of customer solutions, and the most recent market transition of Collaboration and Web 2.0 technologies. Cisco owe much of this to their customers - as listening to their needs, ideas, challenges, etc. help define the future and what is needed for their success. Customers guide their strategy and they stay ahead of market shifts so that they are ready to help their customers evolve, as their industry and needs evolve.

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.[8][9] In July 2009, with a market cap of about US$108.03 billion,[10] it is still one of the most valuable companies.[11]

The company was a 2002-03 recipient of the Ron Brown Award,[citation needed] 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