There’s a space in between something like a TaskRabbit and a full-featured consulting firm with physical offices and in-person assets, and that’s where current TechStars class member Ziptask hopes to operate with its new outsourcing platform. It’s a little like an oDesk or a Freelancer.com, but with features from products like Asana and other PM and reporting software included, too. → Read More
Here’s the cloud to Nokia’s silver lining statement the other day of better than expected handset sales: it is cutting IT 300 jobs, and outsourcing 820 more, with Indian outsourcing giants HCL and Tata Consultancy Services picking up the reins for the latter. The news was announced this morning by the company as it gears up to report Q1 results January 24. → Read More
Today Nokia announced that its deal to buy imaging company Scalado has been finalized — a sign of another piece of the puzzle falling into place for Nokia as it continues to restructure to reverse huge declines in handset sales. But that dark, Finnish cloud has a silver lining that we’ve been noticing: the emergence of a bunch of startups being formed by many among the 40,000 people that have… → Read More
A bit of consolidation in the world of online IT outsourcing: Freelancer.com has bought one of its competitors, Canada’s Scriptlance, in an all-cash deal to spearhead its move into the country and expand its global footprint in other new markets. Prior to the acquisition, Scriptlance had been the fifth largest freelance marketplace in the world; adding its 360,000 users to Freelance.com now… → Read More
For more than a decade now, the Internet has done a great job of making things in our day-to-day lives more efficient by easily connecting parties who can have a mutually beneficial personal or business relationship. This same idea is now on the verge of disrupting labor and changing the definition of employment as we know it. → Read More
The Indian technology industry got its start running call centers and doing low-level IT work for western firms. Then, in the 2000s, it started taking on higher-level IT tasks, offering management consulting services, and performing sophisticated R&D. Now there is another transition happening, one far more significant: a transition to development of innovative technology products. Instead of… → Read More
Is North Korea the next Silicon Valley? PC World seems to think so, with a story that explains how the country is the new hotspot for outsourcing (among other IT initiatives). Apparently North Korea is the pound-for-pound best place for IT talent in the world. That is, you won’t find a country with a better, more educated collection of computer programmers and engineers, software designers and the… → Read More
When startups ask me whether they should outsource product development, I usually advise against it. If they’re desperate to save money, they should outsource some testing or ancillary-product development, not core products. That’s because the developers of innovative technologies need to interact with each other and be close to customers and markets. In my book, outsourcing is for… → Read More
Dell, the baked goods manufacturer, knows that Americans don’t like calling tech support only to get “Pete,” whose name clearly Shoaib, who tells them to restart their computer for every single issue. Fine, Dell says, it’ll improve customer service—legitimate solutions on the other end of the line—but you’d better be ready to pay for it. The Texas-based… → Read More
The article is a little vague (an ambiguous summary of some second-hand information from a Chinese newspaper) but apparently Lenovo is going to be hiring Taiwanese manufacturers for its notebooks rather than keep it all in the family. The laptops we saw were pretty nice, so let’s hope this is a sign that they’re getting lots of orders and can’t keep up with demand. Lenovo gives… → Read More
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