Sun Microsystems will serve as the title sponsor of the 2005 TopCoder Open (TCO). The Premier event for competitive coding's elite, the 2005 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 October 12th through 14th at the Santa Clara Marriott in Santa Clara, CA.

"Sun is excited that this year's TopCoder Open Component Competition will introduce a Java-centric theme," said Dan Roberts, Group Manager Development Tools Marketing at Sun Microsystems. "Developers in the Design and Development contests will compete to build reusable JSF components that simplify user interface builds for Java Web applications. The highest-rated submissions from six separate component competitions will ultimately find their way into the JSF catalogs and libraries of Java users everywhere."

Sun also hosted the TopCoder Challenge at the JavaOne Conference in San Francisco.

Component Design and Development registration for the TCO began June 13th and closes June 29th, with online rounds running weekly through August 18th and a final online round starting on August 24th. The top 8 competitors from each of these categories will advance to the Onsite Finals in Santa Clara, CA on October 12th. Online registration for the Algorithm competition will run August 1 - 16, with qualification rounds beginning August 16th and continuing on a weekly basis through September 7th. The top 48 competitors will advance to the Onsite Finals. Contestants can compete in the Algorithm or Component competitions, or both. Cash prizes for the 2005 TopCoder Open will comprise $75,000 for the Algorithm contest and $75,000 for the Component tournament ($46,500 Design, $28,500 Development) for an overall prize purse worth $150,000.

"Both Sun and TopCoder are leaders in our respective fields and we're excited to help advance the Java development industry in terms of the tools and expertise developers need to create reusable software components and applications," said Rob Hughes, President and COO of TopCoder. "As title sponsor of the 2005 TopCoder Open, Sun underscores a shared vision and commitment to developing talent as well as technology."