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Cisco

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"Cisco" redirects here. For other uses, see Cisco (disambiguation).
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Company typePublic (NASDAQ: CSCO)
IndustryComputer Networking
FoundedSan Francisco, California, USA (1984)
Headquarters
San Jose, CA
Key people
John T. Chambers, Chairman and CEO
RevenueIncrease$34.922 billion USD (2007)
Increase $8.621 billion USD (2007)
Increase $7.333 billion USD (2007)
Total assets104,900,000,000 United States dollar (2015) Edit this on Wikidata
Number of employees
63,050 (2008)
Websitehttp://www.cisco.com

Cisco Systems, Inc. (Template:Nasdaq2, SEHK: 4333) is a multinational corporation with more than 63,000 employees and annual revenue of US$35 billion as of 2007. Headquartered in San Jose, California, it designs and sells networking and communications technology and services under five brands, namely Cisco, Linksys, WebEx, IronPort, and Scientific Atlanta.

Corporate history

One of the many buildings on the Cisco Systems campus in San Jose

Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple that worked in computer operations staff at Stanford University, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally written by William Yeager, another staff employee who had begun the work years before Bosack arrived from the University of Pennsylvania, where Bosack had received his bachelor's degree.

While Cisco was not the first company to develop and sell a router (a device that forwards computer traffic between two or more networks),[1] it was one of the first to sell commercially successful multi-protocol routers, to allow previously incompatible computers to communicate using different network protocols.[2] As the Internet Protocol (IP) has become a standard, the importance of multi-protocol routing as a function has declined. Today, Cisco's largest routers are marketed to route primarily IP packets and MPLS frames.

In 1990, the company went public and was listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Bosack and Lerner walked away from the company with US$170 million each and later divorced.


During the Internet boom in 1999, the company acquired Cerent Corp., a start-up company located in Petaluma, California, for about US$7 billion. It was the most expensive acquisition made by Cisco at that time. Since then, only Cisco's acquisition of Scientific-Atlanta has been bigger.

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.[3][4] In 2007, with a market cap of about US$180 billion, it is still one of the most valuable companies.[5]

Cisco has made inroads into many network equipment markets outside routing, including Ethernet switching, remote access, branch office routers, ATM networking, security, IP telephony, and others. In 2003, Cisco acquired Linksys, a popular manufacturer of computer networking hardware and positioned it as a leading brand for the home and end user networking market (SOHO).

The company was a 2002-03 recipient of the Ron Brown Award.

Cisco has put a major effort into its foray into virtualization technologies. Announced in early 2008, with broad facing concept to a self healing system capable of 15 terabits per second transfer rates.[6] The new type of NX-OS based operating system fully virtualized with tool sets to apply programmable API's with web services oriented tool sets to control the switch with XML applying them across contexts automatically. Security with link layer based encryption embedded into the switching the fabric itself with tags applied independent to IP addresses creating a fully abstracted set of ACL's to control while staying separate from machine addresses in a typical network installation.

Corporate affairs

The company has its corporate headquarters in San Jose, California, and also has outposts in other countries.

Cisco's vision is "Changing the Way We Work, Live, Play and Learn." Cisco's current tagline is "Welcome to the human network."[7]

Products and services

Partial list of hardware products

A Cisco ASM/2-32EM router deployed at CERN in 1987.
  • Application Network Services
  • Broadband Cable products: uBR7100 series, uBR7200 series, uBR10012 CMTSes. A line of Cable modems, the uBR900 series and CVA122 series, were also made in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but have since been discontinued.
    • Clean Access Server
  • Content Networking
  • DSL & Long Reach Ethernet
  • Interoperability Systems
  • Cisco LocalDirector load-balancing appliance
  • Optical Networking series: 15xxx Series: 15302, 15305, 15310, 15327, 15454, 15600, 1580x, 15900(wavelength router, but end for sale)
  • Routers: AGS, AGS+, MGS, IGS, CGS, SB107, 700, 800, 837, 1000 Series, 1600 Series, 1700, 1800, 2500 Series, 2600 Series, 2800, 3600, 3700, 3800, 4000 Series, 4500, 7000 Series, 7100, 7200, 7300, 7400, 7500, 7600, 10000, 12000, and CRS-1
  • Security & VPN products: Anomaly Detection and Mitigation Appliances, Cisco AVS 3110 Application Velocity System, Cisco ASA 5500 Series Adaptive Security Appliances, Cisco PIX 500 Series Security Appliances, Cisco VPN 3000 Series Concentrators, Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series/7600 Series WebVPN Services Module, IPSec VPN Services Module (VPNSM) for Cisco Catalyst 6500 Switches and Cisco 7600 Series Routers
  • Server Networking & Virtualization
  • SPA Phone Adapters
  • Storage networking
  • Switches
    • Catalyst series: 500 and 520 Express, Catalyst 2960, 3560 and 3560E, 3750 and 3750E, 4500, 6500 Nexus 7000 switch etc..
    • Metro Ethernet ME 3400 Series Access Switches
    • MGX 8800 Series Multiservice Switches: MGX 8830, MGX 8850
    • MDS 9000 Series Multilayer SAN Switches
  • Universal Gateways & Access Servers
  • Video
  • Cisco Telepresence
  • Voice & IP Communications: 7900 Series IP Phones: 7936, 7906G, 7912G, 7911G, 7920, 7921G, 7911G, 7921G, 7931G, 7940G, 7941G, 7941G-GE, 7960G, 7961G, 7961G-GE, 7970G, 7971G-GE, 7975G and 7985G
  • Wireless: Wireless Integrated Switches and Routers,Wireless IP Telephony, Wireless LAN Access, Aironet Wireless Bridges and Workgroup Bridges, Cisco Wireless LAN Client Adapters (PCI and PCMCIA), Wireless LAN Controllers, Wireless Network Management, Wireless LAN Management, Wireless Security Servers, Wireless IP Phone 7920

Partial list of software products

Cisco Systems VPN Client

The Cisco Systems VPN Client is an executable program that allows Linux, OS X, Solaris and Windows based computers to connect to a Virtual Private Network (VPN). The client makes remote resources of another network available in a secure way as if the user was connected directly to that "private" network. The software is not free but is often installed on university and business computers in accordance with a site-license.

VoIP services

Cisco became a major provider of Voice over IP to enterprises, and is now moving into the home user market through its acquisitions of Scientific Atlanta and Linksys. Scientific Atlanta provides VoIP equipment to cable service providers such as Time Warner, Cablevision, Rogers Communications, UPC, and others; Linksys has partnered with companies such as Skype and Yahoo to integrate consumer VoIP services with wireless and cordless phones.

Criticisms and controversy

China

Cisco has been criticized for its involvement in censorship in the People's Republic of China.[8] According to author Ethan Guttman, Cisco and other telecommunications equipment providers supplied the Chinese government with Internet infrastructure equipment that is used to block Internet websites. Cisco says that it does not customize or develop specialized or unique filtering capabilities to enable governments or regimes to block access to information and that it sells the same equipment in China as it sells worldwide.[9]

Shareholder class action lawsuit against Cisco

On August 18, 2006 Cisco reached a settlement in a long-standing class action lawsuit that originated in 2001. "The original suit, filed April 20, 2001, claimed that the company made misleading statements, or omitted statements of material fact, that were relied on by purchasers of Cisco stock. It also alleged that the individual defendants sold Cisco stock while in possession of material, non-public information. Cisco denied all allegations in the suit."[10] While Cisco denies all wrongdoing in the suit, it agreed to settle with the plaintiffs. Cisco's liability insurers, its directors, and officers paid the plaintiffs US$91.75 million to settle the suit.[11]

Cisco lawsuit against Huawei

On January 23, 2003, Cisco sued Huawei Technologies, Co., Ltd and its subsidiaries, Huawei America, Inc. and FutureWei Technologies, Inc. over Huawei's unlawful copying of Cisco's intellectual property.[12] The suit alleged that Huawei "unlawfully copied and misappropriated Cisco's IOS software... and infringed numerous Cisco patents." Cisco suspended the patent infringement lawsuit on October 1, 2003, after Huawei agreed to modify some of their products.

Brazil

On October 16, 2007, the Brazilian Federal Police and Brazilian Receita Federal (equivalent to the American IRS) under the "Persona Operation" uncovered an alleged tax fraud scheme employed since 2002 that exempted the company from paying over R$1.5 billion (US$824 million) in taxes.[13]

See also

References

  1. ^ I, Cringely . NerdTV . Transcript | PBS
  2. ^ Cisco claim of first multi-protocol router
  3. ^ "Cisco pushes past Microsoft in market value". CBS Marketwatch. 2000-03-25. Retrieved 2007-01-25. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ "Cisco replaces Microsoft as world's most valuable company". Reuters. The Indian Express. 2000-03-25. Retrieved 2007-01-25. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ Fost, Dan (2006-05-05). "Chron 200 Market capitalization". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2007-01-25. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ Burrows, Peter (2008-01-28). "Cisco's New Data Center Plan Looks Promising. What Will IBM Think?". Businessweek. Retrieved 2008-01-28. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ "The Human Network". Cisco Systems, Inc. Retrieved 2007-01-25.
  8. ^ FRONTLINE: the tank man: the struggle to control information | PBS
  9. ^ Earnhardt, John (2006-02-15). "Cisco Testimony Before House International Relations Subcommittee". Cisco Systems, Inc. Retrieved 2007-01-25. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. ^ "Cisco Shareholder Class Action Lawsuit Resolved" (Press release). Cisco Systems, Inc. 2006-08-18. Retrieved 2007-01-25. {{cite press release}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  11. ^ "Cisco resolves class action lawsuit". Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal. 2006-08-18. Retrieved 2007-01-25. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  12. ^ "Cisco Files Lawsuit Against Huawei Technologies" (Press release). Cisco Systems, Inc. 2003-01-23. Retrieved 2007-01-25. {{cite press release}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  13. ^ "Brazilian tax authorities raid, close Cisco System's offices in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro" (Press release). International Herald Tribune. 2007-10-17. Retrieved 2007-10-17. {{cite press release}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  • Cisco Systems Home Page
  • Cisco on Cisco: Inside Cisco IT Cisco IT case studies, best practices, presentations, video
  • Cisco Networking Academy
  • Cisco Press
  • Cisco Blogs Home Page
  • Information on Cisco Certifications
  • Interactive Overview - 20 Years of Cisco
  • Video and audio of speech by CEO John Chambers at Duke University
  • Cisco Tips
  • Interview with former CEO, John Morgridge, by Stanford students of iinnovate
  • Business data for Cisco Systems:

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