Google Apps Leave Beta

Today Google announced that they're removing the "beta" label from Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Talk. They said, "We've come to appreciate that the beta tag just doesn't fit for large enterprises that aren't keen to run their business on software that sounds like it's still in the trial phase." Quoting the NYTimes: "'Obviously we haven't had a consistent set of policies or definitions around beta,' said Matt Glotzbach, a director of product management at Google. Mr. Glotzbach said that different teams at Google had different criteria for what beta meant, and that Google felt a need to standardize those. ... Practically speaking, the change will mean precious little to Gmail's millions of users. But it could help Google's efforts to get the paid version of its package of applications, which includes Gmail, Calendar, Docs and other products, adopted inside big companies."

Beta

[TheSpoom]

Well, duh. Google marks apps as beta so they have no uptime or reliability requirements to the end user. You can't blame businesses for wanting software they've paid for to not have such an inherent disclaimer.

wtf

[trybywrench]

If they don't have a definition for "beta" then why was it there in the first place?

Re:Beta

[bemymonkey]

Wasn't the paid version non-beta all along?

IIRC only the free versions were marked beta...

Two definitions of "stable"

[Darkness404]

The problem is, there are two different definitions of "stable" one is, the application doesn't crash or have lots of downtime, the other is the application doesn't change. Gmail was stable by the first and most common definition, however I don't think Google imagined Gmail was stable by the second definition. However, a few years later, it became clear that Gmail was more or less stable by both definitions.

Re:wtf

[nine-times]

That's a good question, but if you think about it, it's pretty understandable. If you remember, Gmail used to by an invite-only thing that they were testing. When each of these services were first introduced, they were unstable (both in terms of reliability and the unpredictability of changes) enough to warrant the "beta" tag.

So they probably had a vague and intuitive notion of what "beta" meant to them. However, if you don't have a clear and specific definition of "beta", then there will never be a moment when it clearly makes sense to drop the label.

Re:Beta

[maxume]

If they aren't already encrypting their mail, using Google isn't really changing anything.

It does not mean what you think it means

[DNS-and-BIND]

"We've come to appreciate that the beta tag just doesn't fit for large enterprises that aren't keen to run their business on software that sounds like it's still in the trial phase."

That's what beta means, you idiot! It means it's in the trial phase! You mean I've been right all along, and the beta tag was just an excuse to eliminate complaints? Well color me shocked. The attitude has got a whiff of evil about it.