Best of the blogs: Outages happen to just about every service provider out there from time-to-time. But as is the case with any company facing a crisis, it’s the handling of it that ultimately matters most. “The lackadaisical way that Skype has approached correcting the problem has me fuming,” Randall Kennedy writes in Burned by Skype!. “The moment they started charging my credit card for things like a Skype-In number and Skype-Credit, the nature of the relationship changed … nothing about Skype’s behavior to date seems to indicate an appreciation of how the user dynamic has evolved.” Columnist’s corner: In a similar vein, glad that Netflix has put folks on the phone for a competitive advantage, Ephraim Schwartz bemoans customer service in general — for those in need as well as the providers. Customer service gets human again. “Netflix’s solution runs counter to every high-tech business strategy I have ever heard,” Schwartz asserts. What’s more, the company decided not to outsource. “Someday technology will evolve to offer reliable customer service, but until then it might not be a bad idea for companies to turn their backs on hype from customer service technology vendors and just follow Netflix’s lead.”The news beat: Apple takes a bite out of Dell as sales of its laptops are surging all the way up to 17 percent market share, according to one firm. Business Objects partners with Thomson Financial in a pact that an industry analyst refers to as “the convergence of SaaS solutions along with industry-specific applications.” And IBM says it will turn its Sametime enterprise IM software into a family products that fits into the unified communications realm. Technology Industry