We view all products, technologies and services from the same perspective as our readers--our peers--do. We hold technology solutions up to the light and clearly assess their value. Armed with the information we provide, you are better prepared to make technology choices that will solve your business problems.

The finalists have passed all this scrutiny and, as they say at the Academy Awards, "just being nominated is an honor." All the winners and finalists are the technology solutions we've recommended in the past 12 months.

Selecting the top winners is difficult because so often the products are evenly matched. Additionally, some of the contenders are now a year old. Retesting all the finalists is unrealistic, so we rank the solutions based on their technology and business value at the time we reviewed them. We spend countless hours on this process to ensure the selections we make are accurate and reflect the level of analysis we apply to every review.

That said, we twisted the arms of our technology editors to select a Product of the Year in each of the eight core areas we cover. And from those eight great products, we have selected one product, Intraspect 5 Applications-Product Collaboration, as the Most Outstanding Product of the Year. This application embodies what we think any reader would want from a collaboration toolset and holds the promise of letting any enterprise user work more productively and efficiently--key themes for organizations looking to leverage existing resources in a down economy.

Read on to see if you agree with our selections. If you disagree, send us the list of products and services that best meet the technology challenges in your organization.

You'll find more information on all 43 Well-Connected Award winners here on our Web site. From there, you can link to the original product reviews and see for yourself why these products got the gold.

--James Hutchinson, jhutchinson@nwc.com

Most Outstanding Product of the Year: Intraspect 5 Applications

Intraspect 5 Applications: Collaboration was the name of the game this past year, and after examining a boatload of collaborative tools and product suites, we knew Intraspect Software's Intraspect 5 Applications-Product Collaboration had earned not only our Business Applications Product of the Year award--it also deserved our top honors for Most Outstanding Product of the Year. Intraspect combines the features of collaboration and knowledge management on an enterprise scale and offers choices galore--from operating system to database to browser--at a competitive price.

Although Instraspect lacked some technologically savvy real-time features when we tested it (see "Sharing Is Daring"), the product provided a sweet suite of tools for just about any collaborative enterprise initiative. Its single platform for collaboration, which lets information flow smoothly among and between groups, can be used by product planners, customer-relations professionals and IT managers.

The system's search capabilities, enhanced by content indexing, are another top-notch aspect. These functions, combined with the shared workspace, or c-space, give users with diverse needs a common ground on which to collaborate and manage knowledge on an enterprise scale.

Intraspect Software, (888) 846-8727, (650) 246-5200. www.intraspect.com