Google considers dropping beta tag

[Lordbob75]

Will Gmail get a final release five years after launch?
Madeline Bennett
vnunet.com, 28 May 2009
Google has revealed that it is considering taking some of its products out of beta, after years of keeping flagship applications such as Gmail in test status.
According to reports, Google executives speaking at the firm's I/O Developer Conference this week admitted that moves were afoot to deal with the 'beta' conundrum, after a Gartner analyst pointed out to the search giant that business users could find the tag off-putting.
Matt Glotzbach, product management director for Google's enterprise products, initially countered that Google Apps Premier Edition is not labelled as a beta. However, he conceded that many of the applications within the corporate suite still carry the beta tag next to the logo.
"It's a minor annoyance and something you'll see addressed in the not-too-distant future," he said.
Google Docs product manager Jonathan Rochelle added that the firm does not treat the applications as test versions, and that it was "almost traditional" for Google to retain the beta tag.
Google has long been a fan of beta status for its products. Google Mail is still in beta, five years after its initial launch, as are Google Docs and Calendar. After the recent service blackouts that Gmail and Google News customers have suffered, the firm is no doubt keen to reassure business users that its applications are stable, final release versions and are not still in the trial and development phase.

Google considers dropping beta tag - vnunet.com

~Lordbob

 

[Win7User512]

They keep adding features which delay dropping that tag.

 

[fakeasdf]

Gmail is in self denial leaving their "beta" tag in the name. They are way past the Hype Curve and the beta tag isn't going to keep them on it. I have a gmail account, but I still don't like it. They need to add folders! I know there are labels, but it isn't the same. I want my folders!!!

 

[Lordbob75]

Gmail is in self denial leaving their "beta" tag in the name. They are way past the Hype Curve and the beta tag isn't going to keep them on it. I have a gmail account, but I still don't like it. They need to add folders! I know there are labels, but it isn't the same. I want my folders!!! And everyone knows Gartner, Forrester etc are all my heroes.

You can add folders, it is just not done very well (my complaint as well).
When you open the email, use the move to drop down menu.

~Lordbob

 

[Shak 10]

I don't think they should drop the beta tag as in my view i don't think its good enough to be classifed as a final product.

 

[Mulaka]

So, what online email do you guys use if Gmail is so terrible?

 

[DarkXeno]

So, what online email do you guys use if Gmail is so terrible?

Hotmail

:roflmao:

No I've been using gmail since it was an invite only test site and I like it but like all things web based it has its ups and downs. Google will never take the beta tag off of it due to the fact that when they do and things go down even for an hour people would day its a horrible service at least with the beta tag they can say, hey its beta and has some bugs so its going to go down from time to time.

 

[fakeasdf]

You can add folders, it is just not done very well (my complaint as well).
When you open the email, use the move to drop down menu.

~Lordbob

Correct me if I'm wrong (cause I honestly don't know) but you can move something to the "labels" and then it adds another level of complexity to just get to that group. Since you don't actually get a "folder" that you can choose from, you have to choose all items then filter by that label, correct?

And Beta or not, people use Gmail as their client, they are going to whine and complain any time it goes down. And all software is a work in progress, you can't claim it's a beta forever or we'd still be without windows 1.0 or anything else that is still under development...

 

[xan K]

'bout pretty darn time, I should say.

 

[Lordbob75]

Correct me if I'm wrong (cause I honestly don't know) but you can move something to the "labels" and then it adds another level of complexity to just get to that group. Since you don't actually get a "folder" that you can choose from, you have to choose all items then filter by that label, correct?

No..... I don't exactly get your meaning, but I know thats not it.
It seems a little weird, as there are two ways of doing this. If you select multiple e-mails from your inbox, you can label them. But if you go into the email, you can put in into a folder or something like it. I don't know the exact difference, but one just puts a label on the subject line in the inbox, but the other drops it into the labels "folder?" on the side.....

Do you know what I mean?

~Lordbob