uses see cisco disambiguation . not to be confused with sysco sisq sisko or certis cisco . cisco systems inc. type public traded as nasdaq csco dow jones industrial average component s & p 500 component nasdaq 100 component industry networking equipment founded december 1984 ; 31 years ago 1984 12 san francisco california u.s. founders leonard bosack sandy lerner headquarters san jose california u.s. 1 area served worldwide key people john chambers executive chairman chuck robbins ceo products networking device network management cisco ios and nx os software interface and module optical networking storage area networks wireless telepresence voip security datacenter list of cisco products revenue us 49.24 billion 2016 2 operating income us 12.66 billion 2016 2 net income us 10.73 billion 2016 2 total assets us 121.6 billion 2016 2 total equity us 63.58 billion 2016 2 number of employees 71 883 2016 3 subsidiaries list of acquisitions website cisco.com cisco systems inc. is an american multinational corporation technology company headquartered in san jose california that designs manufactures and sells networking equipment worldwide . 4 it is the largest networking company in the world . 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 nasdaq 100 index and the russell 1000 growth stock index . 5 contents 1 history 1.1 1984 1995 early years 1.2 1996 2005 internet and silicon intelligence 1.3 2006 2012 the human network 1.4 2013 present 2 media and awards 3 acquisitions 4 products and services 4.1 corporate market 4.2 small businesses 4.3 home user 4.4 hardware 4.5 software 4.6 voip services 4.7 hosted collaboration solution hcs 4.8 network emergency response 5 certifications 6 criticisms and controversy 6.1 shareholder relations 6.2 intellectual property disputes 6.3 censorship in china 6.4 tax fraud investigation 6.5 antitrust lawsuit 6.6 remotely monitoring users connections 6.7 firewall backdoor developed by nsa 6.8 spherix patent suit 7 see also 8 references 9 further reading 10 external links history edit one of the many buildings on the cisco systems campus in san jose 1984 1995 early years edit cisco systems was founded in december 1984 by leonard bosack who was in charge of the stanford university computer science department s computers and his wife sandy lerner who managed the graduate school of business computers . 6 despite founding cisco in 1984 bosack along with kirk lougheed continued to work at stanford on cisco s first product . it consisted of exact replicas of stanford s blue box router and a stolen 7 copy of the university s multiple protocol router software . the software was originally written some years earlier at stanford medical school by research engineer william yeager . bosack and lougheed adapted it into what became the foundation for cisco ios . on july 11 1986 bosack and lougheed were forced to resign from stanford and the university contemplated filing criminal complaints against cisco and its founders for the theft of its software hardware designs and other intellectual properties . in 1987 stanford licensed the router software and two computer boards to cisco . in addition to bosack lerner and lougheed greg satz a programmer and richard troiano who handled sales completed the early cisco team . the company s first ceo was bill graves who held the position from 1987 to 1988 . 8 in 1988 john morgridge was appointed ceo . 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 its early years . the logo is intended to depict the two towers of the golden gate bridge . 9 on february 16 1990 cisco systems went public with a market capitalization of 224 million and was listed on the nasdaq stock exchange . on august 28 1990 lerner was fired ; upon hearing the news her husband bosack resigned in protest . the couple walked away from cisco with 170 million 70 % of which was committed to their own charity . 10 although cisco was not the first company to develop and sell dedicated network nodes 11 it was one of the first to sell commercially successful routers supporting multiple network protocols . 12 classical cpu based architecture of early cisco devices coupled with flexibility of operating system ios allowed for keeping up with evolving technology needs by means of frequent software upgrades . some popular models of that time such as cisco 2500 managed to stay in production for almost a decade virtually unchanged a rarity in high tech industry . although cisco was strongly rooted in the enterprise environment the company was quick to capture the emerging service provider environment entering the sp market with new high capacity product lines such as cisco 7000 and cisco 8500 . between 1992 and 1994 cisco acquired several companies in ethernet switching such as kalpana grand junction and most notably mario mazzola s crescendo communications which together formed the catalyst business unit . at the time the company envisioned layer 3 routing and layer 2 ethernet token ring switching as complementary functions of different intelligence and architecture the former was slow and complex the latter was fast but simple . this philosophy dominated the company s product lines throughout the 1990s . in 1995 john morgridge was succeeded by john chambers . 13 1996 2005 internet and silicon intelligence edit the phenomenal growth of the internet in mid to late 1990s quickly changed the telecom landscape . as the internet protocol ip became widely adopted the importance of multi protocol routing declined . nevertheless cisco managed to catch the internet wave with products ranging from modem access shelves as5200 to core gsr routers that quickly became vital to internet service providers and by 1998 gave cisco de facto monopoly in this critical segment . in late march 2000 at the height of the dot com bubble cisco became the most valuable company in the world with a market capitalization of more than us 500 billion . 14 15 in july 2014 with a market cap of about us 129 billion 16 it is still one of the most valuable companies . 17 meanwhile the growth of internet bandwidth requirements kept challenging traditional software based packet processing architectures . the perceived complexity of programming routing functions in silicon led to formation of several startups determined to find new ways to process ip and mpls packets entirely in hardware and blur boundaries between routing and switching . one of them juniper networks shipped their first product in 1999 and by 2000 chipped away about 30 % from cisco sp market share . cisco answered the challenge with homegrown asics and fast processing cards for gsr routers and catalyst 6500 switches . in 2004 cisco also started migration to new high end hardware crs 1 and software architecture ios xr . 2006 2012 the human network edit as part of a massive rebranding campaign in 2006 cisco systems adopted the shortened name cisco and created the human network advertising campaign . 18 these efforts were meant to make cisco a household brand a strategy designed to support the low end linksys products and future consumer products such as flip video camera acquired by cisco in 2009 . on the more traditional business side cisco continued to develop its extensive enterprise focused routing switching and security portfolio . the quickly growing importance of ethernet also influenced the company s product lines prompting the company to morph the successful catalyst 6500 ethernet switch into all purpose cisco 7600 routing platform . 19 however limits of ios and aging crescendo architecture also forced cisco to look at merchant silicon in the carrier ethernet segment . this resulted in a new asr9000 product family intended to consolidate company s carrier ethernet and subscriber management business around ezchip based hardware and ios xr . cisco also expanded into new markets by acquisition one example being a 2009 purchase of mobile specialist starent networks that resulted in asr5000 product line . a cisco facility in chennai india . india is one of the company s largest overseas markets and production centers . throughout the mid 2000s cisco also built a significant presence in india establishing its globalization centre east in bengaluru for 1 billion and planning that 20 % of cisco s leaders would be based there . 20 however cisco continued to be challenged by both domestic alcatel lucent juniper networks and overseas competitors huawei . due to lower than expected profit in 2011 cisco was forced to reduce annual expenses by 1 billion . the company cut around 3 000 employees with an early retirement program who accepted buyout and planned to eliminate as many as 10 000 jobs around 14 percent of the 73 400 total employees before curtailment . 21 22 during the 2011 analyst call cisco s ceo john chambers called out several competitors by name 23 including juniper and hp . on 24 july 2012 cisco received approval from the eu to acquire nds a tv software developer for usd 5 billion . 24 this acquisition signaled the end of the the human network strategy as cisco found itself backing off from household hardware like linksys 25 and flip into the cloud and software market . 2013 present edit portuguese president an bal cavaco silva former cisco ceo john chambers and cisco sr. director of corporate innovation helder antunes . on july 23 2013 cisco systems announced a definitive agreement to acquire sourcefire for 2.7 billion . 26 on august 14 2013 cisco systems announced it would cut 4 000 jobs from its workforce which was roughly 6 % starting in 2014 . 27 at the end of 2013 cisco announced poor revenue due to depressed sales in emerging markets caused by economic uncertainty and by fears of the national security agency planting backdoors in its products . 28 in april 2014 cisco systems announced 150 million to fund early stage firms around the globe to focus on the internet of everything . the investment fund was allocated to investments in iot accelerators and startups such as the alchemist accelerator ayla networks and evrythng . after the announcement the alchemist accelerator announced cisco as a strategic partner and launched an individual program specifically focused on advancing the growth of iot startups . this new funding increased cisco investments thematic investing to 250 million total adding to the previously announced 100 million commitment to startups focused on the emerging internet of everything ioe market opportunity . citation needed on august 13 2014 the company announced it was laying off another 6 000 workers or 8 % of its global workforce as part of a second restructuring . 29 on may 4 2015 cisco announced ceo and chairman john chambers would step down as ceo on july 26 2015 but remain chairman . chuck robbins senior vice president of worldwide sales & operations and 17 year cisco veteran will become ceo . 30 on july 23 2015 cisco announced the divesture of its television set top box and cable modem business to technicolor sa for 600 million a division originally formed by cisco s 6.9 billion purchase of scientific atlanta . the deal came as part of cisco s gradual exit from the consumer market and as part of an effort by cisco s new leadership to focus on cloud based products in enterprise segments . cisco indicated that it would still collaborate with technicolor on video products . 31 on november 19 2015 cisco alongside arm holdings dell intel microsoft and princeton university founded the openfog consortium to promote interests and development in fog computing . 32 cisco sr. managing director helder antunes became the consortium s first chairman . 33 in january 2016 cisco invested in velocloud a software defined wan sd wan start up with a cloud offering for configuring