It was a revolutionary way of outsourcing graphic design work and, quite literally, dozens of times better than the next best alternative.

FORBES: How Both Crowdsourcing and Competition Sparked 99designs

To add more questions, Compaq will at some point start outsourcing chip design to Intel (nasdaq: INTC - news - people ).

FORBES: Magazine Article

The grounding of the 787 fleet illustrates not the flaws in Boeing's industrial culture -- a rush to bring the airliner to market, a degree of over-innovation or a desire to please shareholders by outsourcing too much design and production -- but the rigor of a regulatory regime with a zero tolerance of any mote of imperfection.

CNN: How Boeing can bounce back from Dreamliner problems

At the moment, most of that IT effort goes into manufacturing design, not outsourcing.

BBC: Azim Premji, CEO Wipro

That could explain why successful consumer electronics companies like Apple and Google limit outsourcing to manufacturing, keeping product design, branding and marketing, and after-sales service in-house.

FORBES: How Hewlett-Packard And Dell Destroyed Their PC Advantage ... Piece-By-Piece

Even the most stubbornly hands-on entrepreneurs should probably consider outsourcing their Web sites--both the operation and design.

FORBES: Does Your Web Site Suck?

The company capitalized on the "fabless" trend that allowed a chip firm to concentrate on design and avoid billions of dollars of capital spending by outsourcing production to Asian factories.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Outsourcing PC manufacturing allows HP to focus on strategic core competencies, including supply chain design, new product and services development, supplier management and customer relationship management.

FORBES: How Hewlett-Packard And Dell Destroyed Their PC Advantage ... Piece-By-Piece