All power to them !
Great stuff - it'll keep the layers amused for a long time as well.
It's going to come down to "internationality" isn't it. Even in the UK we can have several companies with very similar or the same "key" name. So who's going to be the one that can use the name in Google Adwords?
Firepond are now called FPX (?!) and they seem to have some problems of their own:
" A former executive of Firepond Inc., a company formerly headquartered in Waltham, was arrested Tuesday as he attempted to enter the United States at the Lewiston Bridge in Niagara Falls, N.Y.
James E. Reid allegedly faked $4.8 million in deals, forged customer signatures and was paid $156,000 in commissions for one of the deals, according to a federal indictment. "