In October 2004, Search400.com invited companies in the iSeries/i5 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, designed to meet new or evolving needs in the marketplace. Not all companies invited to participate submitted nominations.

Products were nominated for specific categories -- Security Software, High-Availability Products, Application Development Tools (includes application development for the Web), Document/Image Management software (includes printing and output), Business-to-Business Solutions, and Backup and Recovery Tools. Each category had its own set of judges, who rated the products on a scale of 1-5 (5 being the best) in six categories -- innovation, performance, ease of integration into environment, ease of use and manageability, functionality, and value. The judges ratings were tallied separately, then averaged with the other judges' ratings to come up with a single rating.