BURLINGAME, Calif. -- High-speed router startup Hyperchip Inc. has just hired Brian Barry, former president and CEO of Ericsson Canada, as its CEO. Here at the NGN Ventures show, Barry told Light Reading that his role will allow Hyperchip's president and chief technology officer, Richard Norman, to concentrate on the technology side of the house, while he guides the company's growth and development.

Barry admits he's not a routing expert, though he casually mentions that under his watch Ericsson Canada replaced its Cisco routers with gear from Juniper, which Ericsson also resells. What qualifies him to drive Hyperchip, he says, is "being able to understand what carriers want and how to handle their needs."

Barry has held positions with Ericsson in Ireland, where he worked for more than nine years, and in England, where he spent six years in management. Before moving to the Great White North, Barry led the firm's communications and special networks division, where he worked with U.K. service providers such as WorldCom Inc. (Nasdaq: WCOM).

It might seem odd that, during an economic downturn, Barry would drop a stable post in favor of leading a startup whose product is still a year away from commercial availability. Barry, however, isn't one to mope about the market. "If you believe in a product, it doesn't matter what the economy's doing, you just go for it," he says.

A new businessman in the Hyperchip executive suite will do the firm some good, as it had previously been loaded with technical talent but lacked a marquee chief executive. Hyperchip now has 266 employees, $147 million in total funding, and will first unveil its monster router -- said to eventually carry 65,536 OC192 (10 Gbit/s) channels -- at the Supercomm 2001 show in June.

(For more information on Supercomm 2001, please visit the Light Reading Supercomm 2001 Preview Site.)

Barry will have his work cut out for him as he aims to move the company at just the right clip, while trying to catch Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) and Juniper Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: JNPR), and outrun startup competitors like Avici Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: AVCI; Frankfurt: BVC7), Caspian Networks, Pluris Inc., and Procket Networks Inc.

-- Phil Harvey, Senior Editor, Light Reading http://www.lightreading.com