Random Sampler: Appeasing trolls, Firefox boosts market share, and more

commentary

Some of the news today was surprising, but some not so surprising. Here goes:

• Don Marti makes a smart but flawed (in my view) suggestion that appeasing patent trolls with a settlement may be the way to go, rather than fighting them off. I see his point, but the problem is that if everyone does this, patent trolls will proliferate. Do we really need to encourage them to have offspring?
• Firefox has apparently boosted its market share at the expense of Safari and Internet Explorer according to Net Applications. Net Applications also says, however, that it may have overcounted. Watch this space.
• SAP argues that web-based offerings like Salesforce are potty (when it comes to security, compliance, etc.), apparently forgetting that it has been determined to offer similar solutions. Dave Rosenberg is probably right here: SAP is being overly conservative here as it tries to protect its product revenue, rather than looking forward to emerging customer needs.

What else? Well, a man is selling his entire life on eBay and it's currently going for around $300,000. Bargain? If he has any talent whatsoever he might be a steal for a company in need of cheap labor. What's $300,000 over 30 years? :-)