No more Beta for Google

Google’s finally out of BETA. Yup, no more “BETA” in the their logos.

Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Talk are all now stable products. Both for consumers and enterprise users.

Gmail itself has been in BETA for 5 years. The other aps in Google’s suite have also done their years in BETA. Come to think of it, it was actually Google (if I’m not wrong) that started the whole “BETA” web 2.0 culture online where almost every service that popped up went public while in BETA and made damn sure that “BETA” was part of their logos.

While BETA is good and I love it as it normally means the software is constantly being improved “work in progress”, this can sometime scare corp customers away. I understand why, try going to finance and asking for funding to purchase software in “BETA”, “you want me to pay for unfinished software?” is what you’d hear. I personally know people who have turned down moving to Google Aps because of it’s “BETA” state.

I don’t think Google will shift focus away from what it’s doing now, the “BETA” word’s gone but we won’t be able to tell the difference. To me it’s purely a business decision.

Anyways, going out of “BETA” potentially means more business for Google. Good for them!!

Question;

Was this done to combat the bad global economy? I don’t know, what ya think?

3 Responses to “No more Beta for Google”

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1. abi says:

   July 8, 2009 at 7:40 pm

   I thinks its all business man! Google will continue to invovate bigger and better products. With google waves in development, gmail is more than a stable product and i think this is also a cue for the new WAVE is on its way

   Reply
2. Raja says:

   July 9, 2009 at 1:47 am

   Also, they we’re saying pitching Google Apps to Enterprise customers with a eta tag is hard, hence the removal.

   Reply
3. Raja says:

   July 9, 2009 at 11:16 am

   WTH? Dont type when you’re sleepy people.

   What I meant to say:-

   Also, they are saying pitching Google Apps to Enterprise customers with a Beta tag is hard, hence the removal.

   Reply