outsource

The 404 1,190: Where we're knee-deep in Kudos (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- OK Cupid launches Crazy Blind Date.

- Delta's new iPad app shows off the world below your plane.

- MoviePass is the Netflix of movie theaters.

- Developer canned for outsourcing his job to China so he could surf Reddit.… Read more

Group says it found child workers at Samsung supplier factory

Update, December 15 at 9:10 a.m.: Samsung posted an announcement Saturday, saying the workers in question were of legal age. See the note at the bottom of this story.

A labor rights group said it has uncovered evidence that a Samsung supplier employs underage workers, among other abuses.

China Labor Watch today said that an HTNS Shenzhen Co. factory that assembles Samsung cell phones employed at least three girls under the age of 16. The group noted that the discovery came just two weeks after Samsung said it didn't find any child workers while auditing this factory … Read more

Google offloads Motorola's China, Brazil factories

Google's Motorola Mobility unit has signed a deal to sell its Chinese manufacturing operations to Flextronics, which has agreed to run its Brazil facility as well.

Under the deal, announced yesterday, employees and assets will transfer to Flextronics once the deal closes, expected in the first half of 2013. The deal also calls for a manufacturing and services agreement for Android and other mobile devices between the two companies. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

The deal allows Motorola to run more efficiently under Google, which has continued to absorb the unit's losses since taking over the business earlier … Read more

Apple's U.S. Mac-making plan would create 200 jobs -- report

Various industry watchers are weighing in on Apple CEO Tim Cook's remark this week that the company will invest $100 million into making Macs in the U.S., with some saying the move will create 200 new jobs.

In an interview with Bloomberg on Thursday, Cook was asked what it would take to get Apple back to building products in the states. Cook said, in part: "Next year we are going to bring some production to the U.S. on the Mac. We've been working on this for a long time, and we were getting closer to … Read more

How outsourcing is boosting prospects for Indian women

A couple of decades ago, women graduating from one of the thousands of colleges in India had limited options. If they went with the more popular career choices of the time, they could teach in a school, work at a bank or for the government. These days, they have another professional avenue - the IT services industry.

According to official data, India's IT and BPO services industry employs some three million workers. Today about a quarter or more of these are women, says India's industry trade body Nasscom. That is up from a fifth of the workforce in … Read more

TaskRabbit raises $17.8 million in Series B funding

TaskRabbit, the San Francisco-based startup that lets people outsource errands, announced today it has raised $17.8 million in Series B financing.

The new round was led by LightSpeed Venture Partners and included contributions from TaskRabbit's existing partners, as well as new investors Allen & Company and The Tornante Company, an investment firm led by former Disney CEO Michael Eisner.

The new round of financing comes seven months after TaskRabbit raised $5 million in Series A financing, bringing its total financing to date at $22.8 million. Since that round in May, the company says it has seen its … Read more

Microsoft outsources internal IT to Infosys

Microsoft has outsourced its internal IT services--help desk, desk-side services, infrastructure and application support--to Indian outsourcing firm Infosys.

For Infosys, managing Microsoft's internal IT gives it a high-profile customer and insight to using the latest technologies from the software giant. Infosys will manage IT services for Microsoft employees worldwide. Microsoft has noted that Infosys is benefiting from a consolidation of services that were already outsourced to HP and others.

Specifically, Infosys is tasked with streamlining processes, simplifying support and service, and cutting costs by using Microsoft's own software, say Windows 7. Infosys will support Microsoft's applications, devices, … Read more

Sprint outsources network to Ericsson

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

Sprint Nextel will outsource its network to Ericsson in a seven-year deal valued at $4.5 billion to $5 billion.

The deal, announced Thursday, allows Sprint to offload the costs associated with running its network. Sprint will transfer 6,000 employees to Ericsson.

Ericsson will now handle all the day-to-day operations and maintenance. The transfer of the network and the employees that go with them is set to happen by the end of the third quarter.

Steve Elfman, Sprint's president of network operations and wholesale, said on a conference … Read more

Q&A: Jordan's Internet minister on piracy, open source, outsourcing

AMMAN, Jordan--Even by the extremes of the Middle East, Jordan is an unusual place.

Unlike its neighbors to the south and east, it enjoys no vast oil wealth. It shares the region's longest border with Israel, about 150 miles, and signed a peace treaty with its neighbor in 1994. Although the northern third of the country benefits from a Mediterranean climate, the rest is largely desert.

That leaves outsourcing and other businesses as one obvious bright spot, and Jordan is hoping to enlist computer technology and the Internet to fight an unemployment rate that probably hovers around 30 percent, … Read more