QandA With IBM's Janet Perna On Eve of Her Retirement

After 31 years with IBM--about half that time spent leading the teams that built and shaped IBM's formidable distributed database business--Janet Perna retired last week as general manager of IBM's Information Management Solutions.

When Perna first took over responsibility for IBM's database business in 1990, the company only had products that ran on its own mainframes. It became clear to Perna shortly after she took over that if IBM were to succeed long term, it needed to have versions of its database on every important distributed platform ranging from high-end Unix servers all the way down to servers running (Heaven forbid) Windows.

After some measure of internal resistance, Perna pulled together from scratch the necessary talent to create those versions and their delivery to market by the mid-1990s. Just in the past two or three years, IBM has pulled just about even with archrival Oracle for the lead in database market share.

In an interview several years ago recalling those days of building the business, Perna displayed her mental toughness: "I am not a permissions-asker. I am going to do what I think makes sense for IBM and use my best judgement. That's what they pay me to do. You start asking permission, and there will always be someone who thinks it is not the right idea."

Perna sat down with Ed Scannell, VARBusiness senior editor, technology, to talk about where IBM's database business has been, where it needs to go and what the market prospects might be for an "unskilled painter."

VB: When did you decide to retire and why?

Perna: I made the decision to retire probably early this year, and we have been working on that transition since. It was a tough decision to make because I have really enjoyed what I have been doing. I think we have made tremendous progress in the time I have been associated with information management. But this was the right time for me to spend more time with my family. My father is 94 and my mother is 87, and they needed some help. It was nice to be able to have the option of doing that.

In the personal aspects of life, the things you do with your children, parents or spouse, you only get one shot at it, so you have to really think it all through, and that is why I made the decision. It made it a lot easier knowing that Ambuj Goyal [former general manager of IBM's Lotus division] was going to come in and take on the division. I have worked with him for most of the past 20 years and have tremendous respect for him. He is a very strong strategic thinker and very focused on customers, and now will bring a lot of the channel experience that he gained in running Lotus. He will bring more of that into information management.

VB: Looking back over your 31 years at IBM, what are you most proud of?

Perna: Clearly, building the business is one aspect of it, and taking IBM to where we are in information management. Growing from a mainframe database business to where we are today, which is the leader in information management. But I am probably more proud of the team we have built and the expertise we have assembled in terms of the people working in this area. We have an information-management team that is top-notch. There is no other company in the world that has the caliber of skills that IBM has in information management. Technology and the industry have changed a lot, and what I see is a team of 5,000 people who are very, very committed and dedicated to the success of our customers.

VB: Who would you credit with having had the most influence on your thinking in building and shaping the business?

Perna: Well, Lou Gerstner, for one, who got IBM very focused on customers. And then Steve Mills and John M.Thompson, who actually built the IBM software business. Steve and I have worked closely together for many years in building this business.

VB: As a mathematician and former high school teacher, do you want to give any credit to, say, your third-grade math teacher?

Perna: Actually, I think that was Mother Bernadette (laughs). I have a cousin 10 years older than me. She was a high school math teacher, and when I was deciding what I should do in life, she was a role model for me. We still laugh about that today.

VB: Where would you like to see IBM's database business go from here?

Perna: Well, continued growth of course. I think we have a tremendous opportunity to make it easier for customers to access all their information, whether it is structured or unstructured. When you look at where the technology is going with services-oriented architectures, you can see information as a service as part of that architecture, and that is what we have been building. We now have very strong information-integration capabilities and what I call "solution accelerators" around. So, as we move forward here with the new application architectures around SOAs, I hope we will continue to make it easy for these business components to access relevant information by presenting information as services.

VB: Did your archrival Larry Ellison send you a note?

Perna: He did not. I am disappointed. I think he has his hands full, though (laughs).

VB: What lessons have you learned from competitors over the years? Or the ones you have most admired over the years?

Perna: Hard to talk about competitors I have admired. I guess it has been the importance of keeping focus on the customers and doing the right things for them, as well as the partners, whether they be ISVs, systems integrators or regional systems integrators. I have valued the importance of those [partner] relationships to being successful in the business. I have seen instances where companies have not paid attention to that. They have tried to exploit their customers or partners. So, I guess I have learned more from the missteps than something I would want to emulate. The things I continue to focus on are the right things for the customers and partners.

VB: What have you learned from the partners in terms of being better able to shape better solutions?

Perna: The partners have been great. They are more than willing to help you shape the technology in terms of what would make the overall solution better for their clients. And so you start thinking about the customer through the partner's eyes and you say, "OK, the thing I want to aspire to be is having the best technology to support that partner or best support for that partner." So, I have learned a lot through the years in dealing with partners. You have to remember when we started as a mainframe database group 30 years ago, there was not a big applications industry. It was mostly customers building their own applications. So, through the years, we have had to rethink who is the customer and who you are really trying to provide the technology for. As more and more customers bought application packages, it switched from focusing on them directly to their solution providers.

VB: Being a woman and having been successful, do you think you have made it easier for other women to move up the ranks within IBM, as well as other high-tech companies?

Perna: I hope I have been a positive role model for women. We clearly need more women in senior positions as role models for other women. I hope I have been able to inspire some women who are just starting their careers.

VB: What are you going to do now? Will you do any consulting for IBM for a while?

Perna: I am always willing to do anything to help IBM be successful, but I have no plans in that area right now. What I am going to be doing is spending more time with my family. I may join a couple of boards, but I have also volunteered with the Red Cross to go down and help in those areas hit by the hurricanes.

VB: Specifically, what can you do?

Perna: I don't know yet. I am early in the process; I am hoping I have some skills they can use. So, what I'll be doing will be very different from what I have done. I also have contacted Habitat For Humanity. I do not have great construction skills, but I am an unskilled painter. So, we'll see if they can use one of those.