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Anyhow, good luck without your researchers.

What, all 50 of them in Silicon Valley? FFS, I didn't even RTFA but I got enough from the summary to understand that this is less than a rounding error compared to Microsoft's overall R&D and engineering staffs.

Also, can we make it Schnell's Law that anyone who mentions the Year of the Linux Desktop without irony has triggered Godwin's Law about the Occam's Razor of Linux zealots' Panglossian combination of The Seven UI Laws, the Joel Test and Newton's First Law of Motion? Unless of course they have done it as part of a Russian Reversal.

A system like this has already been in effect for years. RentACoder (now vworker) is a site where people post projects and then people bid on how cheaply they can do the work. I use to look at the site and people were bidding in the $teens for developing a CMS

No, it's different. With that site, people place their bids and you choose which one you want to work with. Only after you choose does the person break out their code editor and start programming. With the 99designs model, everybody does the work up-front and tweaks it along the way based on feedback. After getting sometimes thousands of designs for a few hundred dollar potential payout, the person holding the contest chooses and pays only one.

For RentACoder to be the same, all the programmers bidding would have to start and finish programming of a CMS, submitting their fully functional completed CMS as their bid. The person whose project it is would pay only one programmer.

Gone are the days when you can charge $5000 for 3 logo concepts when some college student is happy to spend 2 hours cranking out a concept in his spare time for the chance at winning $269 - the price quoted on the 99designs logo design page.

Then go ahead and do that! Except you get what you pay for.

Disclaimer: I've been close to the results of both approaches (not 99designs, it was something else)

From the crowdsourcing site you get a nice drawing

From the 5k for concepts you get:
-concept that's a close fit for your needs
-"tech docs and support" (yes, you need it)
- a visual identity for your product/company

So yeah, go ahead and do it. Or you can ask your nephew who's good at Corel Draw to make something for you for $10, that's even cheaper.

And let me ask you something, do you think the AA logo was done in 10 minutes? twitter's? facebook's?

Yes, watch out established graphic designers ... it looks like you've met your match.

http://99designs.com/other-design-tasks/contests/credit-card-design-49350/designers/443787

http://99designs.com/logo-design/contests/classical-website-logo-49362/designers/443787

Yes, watch out established graphic designers ... it looks like you've met your match.

http://99designs.com/other-design-tasks/contests/credit-card-design-49350/designers/443787

http://99designs.com/logo-design/contests/classical-website-logo-49362/designers/443787

This is no different than Expedia disrupting the travel agent industry, iStockPhoto allowing designers to buy photos shot by amateurs for $1, or eTrade allowing people to do their own stock trading for $9 a piece.

The only people that complain about disruptive innovation are those directly affected by it. Gone are the days when you can charge $5000 for 3 logo concepts when some college student is happy to spend 2 hours cranking out a concept in his spare time for the chance at winning $269 - the price quoted on the 99designs logo design page.