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In his own words, Jim Pertzborn is uncomfortable being a follower rather than a leader. That quality among others lead IBM to recently name him general manager of IBM's Networking Hardware Division (NHD), taking over for James Vanderslice, who was acting manager of the unit. IBM recently made Vanderslice a senior vice president and put him in charge of a new technology group focused on bolstering IBM's chip and peripheral products.

Pertzborn has been with IBM for 25 years. Most recently, he was vice president of server and workstation development for the IBM server group, where he worked on the RS/6000 and AS/400 product lines.

Pertzborn takes over an NHD that has seen massive reorganization this year, and has watched its two top executives move on - Don Haile retired, and Rick McGee went to IBM corporate.

While Pertzborn had only been on the job two days - little time to find his way around the halls at NHD - Network World staff writer Marc Songini caught up with Pertzborn to see what his initial thoughts were on taking over the division's reins.

How do you feel your past experience qualifies you for your new position?
The thing that I can bring to NHD is an awareness of technology along with my development background. I was building total systems for the RS/6000 and S/390 and AS/400, and had interaction with NHD and its key technologies. I've been teaming across all of IBM.

What do you plan to do to make your competitors stay up at night?
Let's say I came to this job because there is tremendous opportunity. The future is simple: It's going to be e-business, and NHD is well connected into the overall IBM strategy. I'm convinced that IBM has a winning strategy, and NHD is a key element. In our desire and our playing to win that will cause people to stay up at night.

In the past few years, NHD has been seen as a market follower. Do you see IBM aggressively challenging the leaders of the network market?
I've never been comfortable personally being a follower. It's never been my nature, number one. Number two: Look at IBM's principles. We said that first and foremost we are a technology company and, therefore, we must have leadership in technology. I don't care what history says. History is history, and today is today, and tomorrow is tomorrow, and we intend to lead, not follow.

What about persistent rumors that NHD is on the auction block?
We should do everything we can to kill these rumors. IBM has no desire or intention to sell NHD. It's here to stay. Look overall at the e-business strategy - NHD is a key element in IBM - one of the critical pieces for executing overall strategy. IBM has tremendous technology and intellectual property. Let's put this rumor to bed.

What's your vision for NHD?
A bright future. I'll just leave it at that.