Isn't this so much easier to understand?

#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;

my @in = ([1,2,3,4,'a','b','c'],
          ['z','y','x','w',9,8,7],
          ['e','f','g','h',5,4,6],
          );
my @out;

for my $y (0..(@in-1)) {
    for my $x (0..(@{$in[$y]}-1)) {
        $out[$x][$y] = $in[$y][$x];
    }
}
[download]

No need to be a Perl geek to do this right! And think of the ease of maintenance!