To qualify for the Grand Prize the RMSE of a Participant’s submitted predictions on the test subset must be less than or equal to 90% of 0.9525, or 0.8572 (the "qualifying RMSE"). After three (3) months have elapsed from the start of the Contest, when the RMSE of a submitted prediction set on the quiz subset improves beyond the qualifying RMSE an electronic announcement will inform all registered Participants that they have thirty (30) days to submit additional candidate prediction sets to be considered for judging.
http://www.netflixprize.com//rules
To qualify for the Grand Prize the RMSE of a Participant’s submitted predictions on the test subset must be less than or equal to 90% of 0.9525, or 0.8572 (the "qualifying RMSE"). After three (3) months have elapsed from the start of the Contest, when the RMSE of a submitted prediction set on the quiz subset improves beyond the qualifying RMSE an electronic announcement will inform all registered Participants that they have thirty (30) days to submit additional candidate prediction sets to be considered for judging.