SIDEBAR

Sidebar: Disaster sharpens views of IT's value

One positive legacy of Hurricane Katrina, IT managers said last week, is many business executives' increased appreciation of the value of technology. That might make it easier to take IT in new directions, they added.

That has been the case for Nancy Kuo, IT director at M.S. Rau Antiques LLC, a large retailer in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Kuo said business continuity issues have moved to the forefront at M.S. Rau in Katrina's wake. For instance, the retailer recently decided to move its Web servers to a hosting facility operated by Rackspace Ltd. in Austin.

Kuo said that before the storm, businesses such as hers typically viewed IT as a secondary concern. Often, the technology focus was simply on whether computers were working properly, she said. But now IT is seen in an entirely new light, according to Kuo. "It's way beyond that -- it's about the survival of the business," she said.