Posted on 06/15/2008 11:45:29 PM PDT by OscarinChina
Joining the online outsourcing trend, Microsoft puts it hand out to grab a piece or perhaps all of the outsourcing pie. Together, Microsoft Research Asia (Beijing, China) and Microsoft Office Labs have launched Task Market. Task Market is an online marketplace for jobs where freelancers make themselves available to assist in their area of expertise. And buyers looking for a little extra help on a project post their job descriptions and await bids.
Chinese fans of Microsoft will instantly recognize the design and concept of the “technical preview” site featuring colors, style and sections for ‘Buyers’ (Business) and ‘Providers’ (Freelancers) similar to that of the business model established by Chinese company myTino (usa.mytino.com). The successful online outsourcing site that provides a service for small and medium sized businesses and a niche for freelance individuals, has been part of the industry for over a year now, and will face stiff competition from its “Big Brother” competitor who seeks to dominate the same target market.
The popularity of outsourcing to China is obvious, companies strategically leverage off the vast cost disparity between itself and developed nations and enjoy sizeable economies of scale. Task Market aims to achieve the same success and capitalize on the technical expertise and competency of English speaking Chinese workers.
In the rapidly developing technology economy of China, Information and Technology professionals’ that are accustomed to the traditional online outsourcing model of competition and spec work, now prefer to utilize the modern structure of myTino.com because they believe it helps them to save time, effort and improve their efficiency. Here [myTino.com] freelancers are not required to complete the work prior to being selected for the project.
Few online outsourcing companies have been able to stand out from the crowd, while Task Market is only focused on very specific and non-technical jobs that can be done on Office applications, myTino.com differentiates its services by offering its buyers the ability to post both simple tasks as well as larger projects beyond writing, editing, translation, and basic design and provides customer service in both Chinese and English. Both web sites feature a structured ratings and feedback system to assess member credibility and help businesses and freelancers choose the most suitable working relationship, also both are complimented by a secure escrow payment service via PayPal.
However, notable weaknesses of Task Market when compared to myTino.com are the lack of comprehensive profiles and portfolios for each member and a built-in message center to privately contact and document communications, opting instead to show only limited member information and strangely enough publicly display discussions threads between the business and freelancers.
The launch signals that Microsoft believes there is a significant business opportunity within the online outsourcing market. As Task Market has only recently been launched, there are only a handful of posted jobs, and as with any new site it will take some time to build a market base. As practiced by other popular online outsourcing sites to support a community, it seems logical that Task Market will co-operate with the highly popular MySpace and MSN messenger to increase its market presence. What's more, will Task Market continue to follow and learn from the past experience of other online outsourcing sites and emulate their business direction, enlarge their business scope and evolve their web structure? And will major players like Yahoo and Google soon follow?
If you’re thinking of using any online outsourcing service, here are a few tips. Be sure to spend the time to plan properly, be thorough and submit as much detail as possible. If you don't ask for something explicitly you're not going to get it, or if you make assumptions, you’ll be sorely disappointed and will spend hours and more money trying to fix it.
- Establish a reasonable budget for your project based on current and previous posted jobs. You can expect the pricing to be much less as many people that bid are from overseas and the cost is much less for overseas work.
- For critical or larger projects, consider dividing the job into smaller projects to get a faster turnaround time and/or accept more than one vendor to get a variety of ideas or sometimes the quality of at least one of the submitted jobs may be unsatisfactory.
- Be available to handle all communications and keep in regular contact via the web site. In addition to the usual issues with communicating electronically there are often language barriers. Also make sure you document any and all agreement or fee changes.
- For new people to outsourcing start with a tiny project and then, if that is successful, give the same freelancer a larger project. People often post a big project at the beginning and encounter issues with the freelancer; this is a way to try before you put more at stake.
After all Microsoft would have an inside track to where most of the holes are.
Microsoft should be careful to make sure that it’s not getting a hearty slice of humble pie a la Vista, instead.
A patriotic American company like Microsoft would *never* help the ChiComs.....unless Linux put them up to it. Linus’s parents were communists, you know. /rolleyes
Amazon.com has had something like this for a few years now.
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