Our nostalgic cover aside, and despite the fact that the SaaS segment is evolving more rapidly than anyone could have envisioned even five years ago, hosted solutions still represent only a small fraction of the vast quantity of software products on the market. Distilling that vast quantity down to what we feel are the Top 100 Products requires an enormous quantitative and qualitative effort - and we've been doing just that for 15 years.

Though the themes and common threads may have changed over the decade-and-a-half that we've compiled this feature, its basic mission statement has not, nor have the criteria.

Each year, the editors focus on such factors as frequency of use; the level of acceptance by practitioner users; visibility in the market; the amount and degree of user support; and - arguably the two most important - performance and user demand.

This year, as always, some of our listings will be as familiar to readers as their own birthday or wedding anniversary dates, while others may have a less familiar ring. As with our past T100 Products features, we've sifted through the traditional categories - payroll, financial planning, tax prep, CRM, nonprofit software, and so on - as well as our recent focus on Sarbanes-Oxley solutions. Last, but by no means least, this year we have added document management as its own category.

Our list is ultimately decided by our editorial staff, and is therefore subjective. Like any "top anything" roster, we realize that some inclusions can elicit disagreement, but for us that's validation of the high esteem in which it's held by our readers. So drop us a line; we enjoy hearing from you.

Without further delay, the staff of Accounting Today presents its 2007 Top 100 Products.

Use them in good health.