San Mateo, USA: oDesk, the leading marketplace and global IT platform for outsourcing technology jobs to certified, freelance, Apple iPhone developers, announced that demand for iPhone programming jobs has skyrocketed by 500% over the past six months.

"Apple's introduction of the 3G iPhone and the iPhone 2.0 platform has driven global demand for oDesk's highly qualified freelance iPhone developers, said oDesk CEO, Gary Swart. ³The App Store and Apple iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) have created a whole new marketplace that oDesk is best able to serve.

For the period from March through September 2008, the oDesk Trends show an increase from under 30 to over 140 jobs per month for iPhone App Developers, iPhone SDK Engineers, and other iPhone programming and consulting jobs working in the ³oDesk oConomy² network of providers from the United States, Russia, India, Ukraine, China, and 100 other countries.

"There is a huge demand for iPhone developers and people are quickly learning iPhone development," reported Adeem Basra, founder of one of oDesk's highly ranked iPhone development companies, based in Lahore, Pakistan. Basra¹s startup has hired five additional iPhone programmers. The demand picked up after July 08. I believe we are still way under capacity, Basra said.

Due to this burgeoning demand, oDesk announced it has introduced a qualification test to help oDesk employers select the best certified professionals for their projects and jobs. The qualification test is available free of charge to all registered oDesk providers.

Test scores and rankings can be seen in the oDesk Trends section of the site. Additionally, embeddable widgets of the oDesk Trends covering nearly a hundred key job skills and roles will be available soon to industry web sites, business publications, and media covering IT jobs and outsourcing.