StreamBase Da Vinci Coder Grand Tournament Opens

August 24, 2006; 06:06 AM
treamBase Systems, Inc., provider of the industry's fastest and most powerful real-time and historical complex event processing software, announced that the Grand Tournament of "The Quest for the Da Vinci Coder" has officially opened. Co-sponsored by AMD, The Quest (www.thedavincicoder.com) now offers the opportunity for programmers, developers, and business people to win the $10,000 grand prize and be named "The Da Vinci Coder" by building the best real-time streaming data application. In less than 60 days, www.davincicoder.com has received more than 500,000 web hits, and over 25,000 downloads of the Da Vinci Coder parody video and the StreamBase Developer Edition.

"Streambase's Da Vinci Coder contest provides a great, hands-on, opportunity for developers to discover the power of stream processing," said Brenda Michelson, Principal Consultant and Analyst at Elemental Links, Inc. "Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing the innovative, yet business relevant, event stream solutions created by contestants during the Grand Tournament."

The Grand Tournament and the search for the most creative and impactful StreamBase application officially kicked off on Monday, August 21st. Submissions will be accepted at www.thedavincicoder.com until 9:00 PM EDT on Monday, September 18th. The submitted StreamBase applications will then be judged on the following criteria:

-- Applicability of solution to real-world problems, business value and benefits

-- Legibility and comprehensibility of the project's description

-- The originality of the business case/problem presented

-- Application design and architecture

-- Complexity and completeness of the application and data sets

-- Correctness of program execution

-- Creative use of StreamBase to solve problem

Five (5) Grand Tournament Finalists will be selected by a panel of judges and Da Vinci Coder registrants will then have an opportunity to rate the submissions online in a "Stream Idol" voting process starting Monday, September 25th on www.thedavincicoder.com. On Monday, October 2nd, "The Da Vinci Coder" will be publicly unveiled at the www.thedavincicoder.com site.

Only one Da Vinci Coder Grand Tournament winner will be named, and he or she can select one grand prize valued at $10,000 USD including: a whirlwind tour of London and Paris, an amazing zero-gravity experience, a "take the money & run" option, or the alternative to generously donate the full prize dollar amount to a charity of choice.

Prior to the start of the Grand Tournament, the contest offered seven (7) weekly Jousts which spanned from Monday, July 3rd through Monday, August 21st. Weekly winners participated in a series of mystery challenges that demanded intellect, creativity, and skill, while using the StreamBase Developer Edition.

Da Vinci Coder Weekly Joust winners and prizes included:

-- Andrew Hockman (Joust 1 Winner, selected a $1,000 gift certificate to REI(R), the renowned supplier of specialty outdoor gear and clothing)

-- Chris Bleuel (Joust 2 Winner, selected an iPod(R) ultimate collection prize bundle valued at more than $1,000)

-- Robert Speaker (Joust 3 Winner, selected a $1,000 gift certificate to REI)

-- Tony Wu (Joust 4 Winner, selected the Bose Home Theatre System valued at more than $1,000)

-- Brian Scott (Joust 5 Winner, selected a $1,000 gift certificate to REI)

-- Paul Smith (Joust 6 Winner, selected a $1,000 gift certificate to REI)

-- Tom Steinthal (Joust 7 Winner, selected the iPod(R) prize bundle valued at more than $1,000)

The origin of The Quest is revealed in a three-minute video parody of "The Da Vinci Code" movie, providing a humorous portrayal of the challenges faced by skilled software programmers, who typically write custom-code to try and meet rapidly changing business demands for leveraging real-time information. At the conclusion of the parody trailer, viewers are invited participate in The Da Vinci Coder Contest.

About The Quest for The Da Vinci Coder

The Quest for The Da Vinci Coder is a peer-to-peer contest developed and run by StreamBase Systems, Inc. The Grand Tournament officially began on Monday, August 21st and ends on Monday, September 18th. Prizes are only available for U.S. residents. The site, www.thedavincicoder.com, is maintained and updated by StreamBase and is no way affiliated with Dan Brown or Sony Pictures. We in no way claim the artwork displayed to be our own. Copyrights and trademarks for the books, films, articles, and other promotional materials are held by their respective owners and their use is allowed under the fair use clause of the Copyright Law. For inquiries regarding The Quest, please email: [email protected].

About StreamBase

StreamBase Systems was founded in 2003 to address the processing demands of low latency, real-time computing. The first in a new breed of systems software, the award-winning StreamBase stream processing engine empowers organizations in financial services, telecom and networking, e-Business, government and military and other industries to transform real-time streaming data and historical event data into competitive advantage through applications that deliver right-time business responses. Current clients include leading exchanges, hedge funds and investment firms, where applications require rapid execution of queries, analytics and actions using real-time and historical data. StreamBase is headquartered in Lexington, Massachusetts with offices in New York, Washington, D.C., and London. Additional information on StreamBase is available at www.streambase.com.

(C) 2006 StreamBase Systems, Inc. All other trademarks or trade names are properties of their respective owners. All rights reserved.