Wikipedia

Topcoder

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Topcoder, a Wipro company, is a crowdsourcing company with a global open community of designers, developers, data scientists, and competitive programmers. Topcoder sells community services to corporate, mid-size, and small-business clients, and pays community members for their work on the projects.[1][2][3] Topcoder also organizes the annual Topcoder Open Tournament, and a series of smaller Topcoder Regional events.

Topcoder, Inc.
IndustryInformation Technology Staffing
Software
Outsourcing services
FoundedApril, 2001
FounderJack Hughes
Headquarters
Indianapolis, IN
,
USA
ParentWipro
Websitewww.topcoder.com

Topcoder Company

Topcoder was founded in 2001 by Jack Hughes, Chairman and Founder of Tallan company.[1][2][3] Originally, it was running regular competitive programming challenges, known as Single Round Matches (SRMs) – timed, 1.5 hours algorithm competitions, in which contestants compete against each other to solve the same set of problems; and Marathon Matches – longer and more difficult algorithmic contests.[1] The target auditory were school and college students; and high prizes, $5k - $10k per match, from corporate sponsors, were offered for tournament winners to bolster the interest in the community.[1]

As the community grew, in 2003-05 Topcoder started to offer software development services to 3-rd party clients, contracting individual community members to work on specific tasks; though most of the revenue still cam from consulting services provided to clients by Topcoder employees.[1][3] From 2006 Topcoder also holds design competition, thus offering design services to the clients.[1]

In attempts to optimize expenses, in 2007-08 Topcoder introduced new competition tracks, and delegated more work from its employees to the community. By 2009 the size of Topcoder stuff reduced to 16 project managers servicing ~35 clients, while most of the actual job was done by the community via crowdsourcing. Topcoder representatives claim that at this point their community had about 170k registered members, and the company's annual revenue was about ~$19m.[1][3][4]

In 2013 Topcoder was acquired by Appirio, and Topcoder Community, ~500k members strong back then, was merged, under Topcoder brand, with the 75k members strong crowdsourcing community Cloudspokes, created and managed by Apprio.[3][5][6][7]

In 2016 Topcoder, along with Appirio, was acquired by Wipro as a part of $500m deal, and continued operate as a separate company under its own brand.[3][8][9][10][11] That year it also reached the milestone of 1 million registered members.[12]

Business model

Topcoder sells software licenses to use the growing body of components that have been developed in competition and also acts as an outsourcing center, allowing companies to farm out custom design and development tasks to Topcoder competitors. Competitors involved in the creation of these components are paid royalties based on these sales.

The software resulting from algorithm competitions—and the less-frequent marathon matches—is not usually directly useful, but sponsor companies sometimes provide money to pay the victors. Statistics (including an overall "rating" for each developer) are tracked over time for competitors in each category.[citation needed]

Types of competitions

  • Algorithms (competition length about two hours): Competitors are given a set (usually three) of algorithmic problems and have 75 minutes to correctly solve as many as they can. Topcoder has been hosting algorithm competitions since 2001.[citation needed]
  • Software Design (competition length one week): Topcoder hosts graphic design and development competitions in which coders can compete to create components and applications that are either generally useful, or that third parties have contracted for. Competitors are given a set of user requirements and attempt to convert them into a usable software design specification. Their efforts are judged on a variety of "real-world" criteria on how correct and practical their design is.[citation needed]
  • Development (competition length one week): Competitors are given a set of design specification and attempt to write software components that match this specification. These components are judged on their functionality and coding style.[citation needed]
  • Marathon Matches (competition length one or two weeks): Contestants are given a particularly difficult algorithmic problem. The scoring is done by computer based on criteria specifically suited to the problem.[citation needed]
  • Studio (graphic design): Contestants are asked to show off their creative skills in a competitive environment.[citation needed]
  • Architecture Assembly Topcoder has created Assembly Competitions as an extension of Component Design and Development Competitions. Through these competitions, competitors create high quality applications using completed components and Topcoder's established competitive method.[citation needed]
  • Testing[citation needed]
  • Bug Races Project teams, clients and members are able to log bugs they find in software developed and supported by Topcoder. Topcoder will communicate these bugs to the member community. Bugs that are open to the community will be posted on the Active Bug Races page.[citation needed]

Prizes

Topcoder initially awarded money every week to coders who did well in the weekly competitions, or Single Round Matches (SRMs). For a while, prize money was only awarded twice a year to winners and finalists of the Topcoder Collegiate Challenge (TCCC, which is in the spring) and the Topcoder Open (formerly the Invitational, which is in the fall). As of June 2005, some weekly SRMs began to once again award prize money, being sponsored by outside companies such as Google and Yahoo!. However, since August 2008 Topcoder returned to giving money prizes only to winners and finalists of other tournaments.[citation needed]

Statistics

As of May 3, 2016 Topcoder has more than 997,507 registered members.[13]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Lakhani KR, Garvin DA, Lonstein E (January 2010). "TopCoder (A): Developing Software through Crowdsourcing". Harvard Business School Case: 610–032.
  2. ^ a b DIamandis, Peter (March 20, 2013). "TopCoder's 5 Steps to Building a Global Workforce Community". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 15 April 2016. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  3. ^ a b c d e f Mitra, Sramana (January 2, 2018). "Genesis to Acquisition: Mike Morris, CEO of Topcoder". One Million by One Million Blog. Retrieved March 30, 2018. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  4. ^ Kanaracus, Chris (October 15, 2008). "TopCoder eyeing SMB market". InfoWorld. Retrieved April 4, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  5. ^ Klemp, Nicole (November 19, 2015). "Appirio is Making Big Changes to the Topcoder Community and Improving the Member Experience". Retrieved April 4, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  6. ^ TechCrunch report Lunden, Ingrid (September 17, 2013). "Appirio Buys TopCoder To Add More Crowdsourcing, And 500K Developers And Designers, To Its CloudSpokes Network". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2014-01-15. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  7. ^ Clancy, Heather (January 21, 2014). "Appirio officially unifies CloudSpokes and topcoder". ZD Net. Retrieved April 4, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  8. ^ Kheterpal, Gaurav (October 24, 2016). "Wipro Acquires Appirio - A Topcoder Community Member's Perspective". Topcoder Blog. Retrieved April 4, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  9. ^ Phadnisi, Shilpa (October 21, 2016). "Appirio's TopCoder too is a big catch for Wipro". The Times of India. Retrieved April 4, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  10. ^ Morris, Mike (October 20, 2016). "News Item: Wipro Acquires Appirio". Topcoder Blog. Retrieved April 4, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  11. ^ Sayer, Peter (October 20, 2016). "Wipro is buying cloud consultant Appirio for $500M". PCWorld. Retrieved April 4, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  12. ^ "Topcoder Community: 1 Million Members Strong". Topcoder Blog. May 8, 2016. Retrieved April 4, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  13. ^ "Community Overview". Topcoder.com. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
  • Official website
  • Business data for Topcoder, Inc.:
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