In the fall of 2004, SearchCRM.com invited companies in the CRM market to nominate their products for the 2004 Products of the Year awards. To be eligible for consideration, a product had to have been introduced or significantly upgraded between Sept. 30, 2003, and Oct. 1, 2004. For previously available products, the upgrade must have incorporated major new features that were designed to meet new or evolving needs in the marketplace.

We looked at products in six categories -- business intelligence, marketing automation, sales force automation, customer-facing online service and contact center software. Each category had its own set of judges, who rated the products in terms of innovation, performance, ease of integration into environment, ease of use and manageability, functionality, value, and service and support. We then tallied the judges ratings separately, and aggregated them with those of the other judges to come up with a single numerical score.