Best of the blogs: “It had to happen, just when a space gets hot somebody had to state the obvious,” David Linthicum begins this Real World SOA post in reference to IBM announcing eight industry-specific roadmaps for SOA. “The notion that SOA is all about business is correct, but I’m not sure there is anything new about that. However, it’s the combination of business needs with the right best-of-breed technology that provides the maximum benefit.” Handhelds: NetSuite unwraps SuitePhone software to let users access its hosted applications via the iPhone. A work-around puts Skype on the iPhone such that users can make cheaper, albeit not free, phone calls, while Nokia injects Skype into its N800 tablet PC. The news beat: Suspense mounts for San Francisco’s municipal Wi-Fi plan with two important make-or-break votes being delayed. Microsoft lines up Office Live partners. And the FBI says to expect more spam prosecutions as it has some 70 active investigations into related crimes. Green IT: Smart metering is poised to take off. Market analyst Datamonitor, in fact, estimates that smart metering will reach 89 percent penetration in North America and 41 percent penetration in Europe by 2012, Ted Samson reports. One of the perks is that “energy consumers, both household and businesses, can reap better control over their energy bills.” Technology Industry