Cisco — some facts and history
Cisco was founded in 1984. It was called cisco because it began in the city of San Francisco.
The Cisco logo is inspired by the famous Golden Gate Bridge.
The company was founded by Leonard Bosack and Sandra Lerner, a husband-and-wife team. It is said they created the first multiprotocol router to enable them to email each other.
The Cisco empire was built on networking technology and they still dominate this market despite lots of strong competition. It’s equipment is used everywhere, from mountaintops to submarine decks and every in between. As of 2016, switching and routing products still accounted for nearly half of the company’s revenue.
Cisco continues to branch out into other areas: -
- It has a large presence in data centres with servers, networking and storage infrastructure.
- Collaboration tools allow voice, video, data and mobile communication. Products offered include IP telephones, video conference servers, contact center and messaging software.
- Wireless access points for indoor and outdoor wifi coverage.
- Security — in 2016 Cisco acquired OpenDNS, Sourcefire and Lancope to complement their existing Advanced Security Appliances (ASAs)
- Internet of Things is seen as a big growth area, with Cisco’s acquisition of Jasper showing it’s future intent in this area.
As of 2016, Cisco had over 70,000 employees. Full 2016 revenue was $49.2 billion with net income a very strong $10.7 billion.
Cisco has been aggressive in expanding it’s product portfolio through acquisitions. Crescendo Systems was the first company Cisco acquired for $95 millin in 1993. To date it has acquired over 180 companies.
