MendMyPC has been my baby for quite a while.  It has been my desire for the past 8 years to create a marketplace for the provision of IT support services, the technical and business conditions are the best right now.

There are other companies in this space, some provide IT services while some others are dedicated to the provision of programming resources.  Here is a brief rundown. 

American company OnForce are probably now the biggest threat particularly as they are also now expanding into the UK and into Germany . They have an established business mode, however there are subtle differences which will give mendmypc some unique advantages.

UK company  PCIQ has been in the market for just under a year and was the company I was initially watching and tracking as the biggest threat but OnForce is now a bigger threat.  

Another American company ODesk specialises in programming projects with a lot of the programmers coming from Russia and the  Ukraine.  They charge hourly rates and take a cut of the entire cost of the project.  They also have tools for managing the entire project lifecycle and have what they call the 'oconomy' shwoing all the money in the system.

American company Elance specialises in sourcing freelance professionals in categories such as Web & Programming, Design, Sales, Marketing, Finance, Legal , Engineering and Manufacturing.  

There is yet another American company RentACoder and as the name sugests this company specialises in sourcing freelance programming resources.

I think the Going Solo Conference in Lausanne, Switzerland on the 16th of May is a great idea, I came across it via Techcrunch UK.

The conference is aimed at

"freelancers and small business owners working in somewhere in the internet industry"

Given the aims of this blog, this confernce is of particular interest, I wonder how much they will focus on the nature of work in an increasingly connected environment.

In my experience it takes courage and determination to be a freelancer, mainly because you don't have the security of a parmenent job.  Nonetheless freelancing can be very rewarding both financially and emotionally.  Nothing beats being your own boss and working when you want to and sometimes even only on the jobs you want to work on.