TopCoder said Tuesday that AOL has reached an agreement to use the TopCoder Enterprise Software Development platform and associated services, including 1,100 reusable software components.

Already an ad hoc user of TopCoder, AOL now has formalized the arrangement.

AOL can access TopCoder tools and processes and the TopCoder Unified Modeling Language design tool for visualizing and constructing concepts and processes in software systems.

"We are going to be building some Web applications, some Web application destination sites, and some mobile applications," said Nic Perez, AOL technical director.

AOL will use TopCode's catalog of code for application elements. AOL components cover such areas as security, data management, reporting, and mathematical analysis.

The TopCoder platform also features TopCoder's Software Factory approach to delivering software assets and accessing developer talent. TopCoder commissions a social network of developers to build software and holds competitions to build applications. AOL will have access to Software Factory developers.

"We use them as a virtual workforce to build software for our clients," said Mike Morris, executive vice president of software development at TopCoder.