Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American computer networking company. Cisco made its first acquisition in 1993, which was followed by a series of further acquisitions.

History

Founded in 1984, Cisco did not acquire a company during the first seven years of its existence; but, on September 24, 1993, Cisco acquired Crescendo Communications, a LAN switching company. Following the first Cisco takeover purchase, acquisitions have constituted 50 percent of the company's business activity. The company's largest acquisition is the purchase of Splunk—a software company that develops software for the analysis and monitoring of machine-generated data—US$28 billion. Cisco's previous largest acquisition was tied between Cerent Corporation and Scientific Atlanta for $6.9 billion in 1999 and 2005 respectively. The majority of companies acquired by Cisco are based in the United States (U.S.) and a total of 149 companies had been acquired. Most of the companies acquired by Cisco are related to computer networking, with several LAN switching and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) companies included in the list of acquisitions.

Acquisitions

Each acquisition is for the respective company in its entirety, unless otherwise specified, and the date of the agreement between Cisco Systems and the subject of the acquisition is listed. The value of each acquisition is listed in the US$ currency because Cisco Systems is headquartered in California, U.S. The majority of its products and business units have come from acquisitions, with Cisco Systems spending more than $70 billion to acquire approximately 218 organizations as of October 2021.