All Roads Lead From Cisco

SUNNYVALE, Calif. (TheStreet) -- Talk to a founder of a computer-hardware company in Silicon Valley, and chances are good he or she spent time at Cisco Systems(CSCO Quote). While Cisco, the world's largest maker of networking equipment, has gained a reputation for acquiring dozens of little companies, it has inadvertently birthed dozens.

"Cisco instills in its corporate culture a sense of being an entrepreneur within the company," says Pejman Roshan, who left Cisco's Wireless Networking Business Unit two years ago to co-found Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Agito Networks, which deals with the convergence of cellular and Wi-Fi technology for corporate phone systems. Backed by Battery Ventures, Agito has about 50 customers and supports dual-mode handsets from Nokia(NOK Quote), Palm(PALM Quote) and Research in Motion(RIMM Quote).

"Because Cisco plays a leading role in the IT industry in general and the Wi-Fi industry in particular, working there means you're going to interact with a lot of really smart people and get exposure to a lot of new ideas," says Ron Seide, who, along with his partners, left the Ohio branch of Cisco's Wireless Technology Business Unit in 2006 to start Summit Data Communications, an Akron-based company that makes high-performance radio modules for medical devices and industrial equipment. So far, Summit has shipped 600,000 modules to customers such as Datalogic(DAL.MI Quote), Psion Teklogix(PON.L Quote) and Philips(PHG Quote).

TheStreet.com caught up with Roshan, now Agito's chief marketing officer, and Summit President Seide to talk about what it's like to leave Cisco to start a company in an age when getting acquired by Cisco is a common exit strategy.