TopCoder Announces AMD as Title Sponsor of 2006 TopCoder Open in Las Vegas

TopCoder Announces AMD as Title Sponsor of 2006 TopCoder Open in Las Vegas

March 17, 2006

Top Programmers in the World Will Battle at The Aladdin Resort for Share of $150,000 Prize Purse in World Championship of Computer Coding

    GLASTONBURY, Conn., March 17 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ --
TopCoder(R), Inc., the leader in online programming
competition, skills assessment and competitive software
development, today announced that AMD (NYSE: AMD), a
leading global provider of innovative microprocessor
solutions, has been named the title sponsor of the 2006
TopCoder Open (TCO).  The Premier event for competitive
coding's elite, the 2006 TopCoder Open will bring the
world's finest professional and collegiate programmers
together for international ranking, celebrity and a share
of the $150,000 prize purse for Algorithm, Component Design
and Development categories.  The Onsite Finals will take
place May 3rd through 5th at the Aladdin Resort and Casino
in Las Vegas, Nevada. Full registration details and rules
are provided at: http://www.topcoder.com/tco06 . 
    (Logo: 
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060316/NYTH001LOGO )
    "AMD Developer Central, AMD's program to support
software developers, is pleased to sponsor the 2006
TopCoder Open and help showcase the unique creativity and
genius shown by TopCoder members in this competition,"
said Richard Finlayson, Director Segment and Industry
Solutions, Software Strategy and Alliances Group, AMD. 
"This year's competition promises to be one of the
best.  Software development is at a key juncture as demand
for 64-bit and multi-core hardware enables new ways to
develop and deploy operating systems and applications.  By
promoting best practices in software development on the
latest hardware, this competition brings together the
finest talent in the business to build better code that
solves challenges and benefits everyone in the
community." 

    TopCoder Competitions 
    TopCoder tournaments are known worldwide as the most
grueling, comprehensive test of skill in the field of
competitive programming.  The events allow competitors to
solve complex algorithmic problems and design and develop
working pieces of reusable software.  All current industry
standard technologies are incorporated, including Java,
C++, C#, VB.NET, UML, J2EE and .NET.
    The TopCoder Open (TCO) is host to both professional
and collegiate developers.  This event is dominated by the
highest rated members in the TopCoder community, but enjoys
heavy participation and spectatorship from developers of all
levels.  The TopCoder Collegiate Challenge (TCCC) involves
thousands of university-level students majoring in
everything from computer science to mathematics to applied
physics.  The students compete head-to-head over several
online elimination rounds until the best are flown in to
compete in person at the onsite finals.  As with the TCO,
the destination of the finals varies from year to year.  In
the past, TopCoder has hosted the TCCC during the spring
timeframe, while the TCO would take place during the fall
months.  This year the order of the two flagship events has
been reversed to better meet the needs of both academic and
corporate recruiting cycles.
    "The TopCoder Community exemplifies the new breed
of dynamic global environments based on a great breadth and
depth of accumulated knowledge and by perfecting technique
with communal mentoring," said Rob Hughes, President
and COO of TopCoder, Inc. "TopCoder welcomes AMD as a
sponsor that shares our passion for recognizing the
innovation, creative thinking and achievements that are the
hallmarks of our community."

    About AMD Dev Central 
    AMD Dev Central is designed specifically to meet the
needs of our expanding developer community.  This program
helps capture the benefits of AMD performance and
technology in hardware and software products by supporting
developers and x86 free-thinkers with the resources they
need to be successful.  Resources include: information,
how-tos, development tools (such as CodeAnalyst(TM) and the
AMD Core Math Library) and community forums.  To learn more
and become a member of AMD Developer Central, visit
http://www.amd.com/devcentral.   

    About TopCoder, Inc.
    TopCoder is the recognized leader in identifying,
evaluating and mobilizing effective software development
resources. Through its proprietary programming competitions
and rating system, TopCoder recognizes and promotes the
abilities of the best programmers around the world. 
TopCoder Software harnesses the talent of these developers
to design, develop and deploy software through its
revolutionary competitive development methodology. 
TopCoder's methodology emphasizes thorough specification
and design, distributed development using reusable
components, and a rigorous quality assurance review process
and results in higher quality, lower cost software solutions
than traditional software development methodologies.  For
more information about sponsoring TopCoder Events,
recruiting TopCoder members and utilizing TopCoder
Software, visit http://www.topcoder.com.
    TopCoder is a registered trademark of TopCoder, Inc. in
the United States and other countries.  All other product
and company names herein may be trademarks of their
respective owners.

     Jim McKeown
     TopCoder, Inc.
     860.633.5540
     [e-mail]

SOURCE  TopCoder, Inc.
    -0-                             03/16/2006
    /CONTACT:  Jim McKeown of TopCoder, Inc.,
[phone], [e-mail]/

    /Photo: 
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060316/NYTH001LOGO
              AP Archive:  http://photoarchive.ap.org
              PRN Photo Desk, [e-mail]/
    /Web site:  http://www.topcoder.com 
                http://www.topcoder.com/tco06 
                http://www.amd.com/devcentral /
    (AMD)