
Gmail is out of beta - mcav
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/google-apps-is-out-of-beta-yes-really.html
======
judofyr
It's almost like they just wanted to ruin palsecam's argument:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=691365>

~~~
palsecam
Yeah, funny timing. I'm actually happy they ruined my argument :-)

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GavinB
_One more thing for those who still like the look of "beta", we've made it
easy to re-enable the beta label for Gmail from the Labs tab under Settings._

This is silly and undermines the whole concept of a "beta" version. It makes
it look like a fashion accessory more than anything, not an actual indication
of product stability and completion.

~~~
mtomczak
I strongly suspect that's the point. What does "beta" mean on a web service
that is continually updated by the developers in essentially realtime? The
only real meaning I can think it has is the liability concerns that others in
this thread have mentioned.

------
Ennis
This feels like it has to do more with the changing culture at Google. A beta
label would not have lasted this long at a company like Microsoft because the
business team would not even consider it. They would have thought about the
implications of companies hesitating to use beta software. I really liked
google's gung ho techhead culture personally. I hope they find the right
balance and not push their engineers into too much rigidity.

~~~
tjmc
That's not quite true. Microsoft had a Hotmail plugin in Outlook Express that
was "beta" for at least 5 years. Microsoft simply used the term as an excuse
to avoid supporting a product that people don't pay for. Sounds pretty similar
to me.

~~~
Ennis
From what I've seen on the inside of the company I would disagree. It's more
likely that feature was so low priority that it never made the bar to be
looked at seriously. I'm not bad mouthing the company. On the contrary they
have some of the best minds in the world there. It's just the way company
culture is at Microsoft. Much more than code goes into making their software
which to say the least complicates things. I can elaborate but I guess I'll
leave it at that.

------
ken
"We're often asked why so many Google applications seem to be perpetually in
beta."

It was a great lead-in, but he never did answer this.

~~~
jemka
I think he alludes to it with, " _So we've focused our efforts on reaching our
high bar for taking products out of beta, and all the applications in the Apps
suite have now met that mark._ "

Achieving the goals of the "high bar" seem to be the key to getting out of
beta. But five years? That's a really high bar.

~~~
ken
He does hint at it, but avoids saying anything concrete.

I had no idea GMail was even one of the "Google apps" (I thought that name
meant their spreadsheet / word processor, but I guess that's "Google docs").
These were all completely different products, doing different things,
sometimes developed outside by a company Google later bought, and developed
years apart, so it's not clear to me why this particular set of products needs
to be un-"beta"'d all at once.

It also doesn't speak to the more general question. I don't think their "beta"
apps are inferior, in general, to their non-"beta" apps, so their "high bar"
must be pretty crooked. :-)

~~~
derefr
They're sold as one big SaaS package to companies. They're taking the "beta"
label off so said companies will stop bitching.

~~~
ken
Yes, that's the obvious conclusion to draw in this case, but it still doesn't
reveal the general rule.

For example, Google Groups has been out of beta for years, yet I find it
unusably bad (e.g., no spam filtering or even killfiles so I have to hit
"Older>>" about 5 times to see the next actual post), and based on a couple
reviews I found just now, I'm not alone. I doubt they removed the "beta" label
from GG so they could sell it as a service to companies.

~~~
cake
I find Google Groups awful in terms of usability too !

It's extremely difficult just to find your own post, then you have to
understand why you can't post here, that you must subscribe to this group
first there etc etc...

No wonder they're switching to getsatisfaction
(<http://getsatisfaction.com/google/products>)

------
robryan
I guess they would have been unable to capture a section of the corporate
market with the beta tags.

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andrewljohnson
What a lousy blog post. It doesn't even come close to telling us what Google's
"out of beta" standard is. Just a PR stunt, and a badly executed one at that.

~~~
derefr
For google, "beta" _is_ purely a PR label; this is because what "beta"
normally is is an _HR_ distinction, and Google doesn't work that way.

In more standard companies, the R&D team writes software up to, and including,
the beta. Once the software is "released," the maintenance team steps in and
the R&D team moves on. Google doesn't do this, so there's no meaning to a
Google product being "in beta" or "out of beta."

------
sachinag
The right answer to "why" is "because they couldn't get corporations and
organizations to pay for Google Apps with a beta tag attached to any of the
core offerings of the suite offering".

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Mintz
This is more than just an updated .gif, this is Google committing itself to
its product. Good to see.

~~~
ryne
I think it's nothing more than an updated gif. Google Notebook was out of beta
for a few years before they pulled the plug. Albeit the circumstances were
different but Google has the power to uproot any of their products as they see
fit without any real "commitment."

------
zacechola
Already!?

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smakz
This is the whole point of beta programs. They talk about you once when you
release and again when you're out of beta: free PR.

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michael_dorfman
I never thought I'd live to see the day-- I figured this would be something
for my grandchildren's children to joke about.

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mattdennewitz
ive been ignoring that "beta" label forever. completely forgot about it. huh.

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thras
Out of beta? More importantly, who do I call if I have a problem with my Gmail
account?

~~~
Retric
The person / company you paid to use Gmail.

~~~
thras
Sure. Tell me how I can pay to use Gmail?

~~~
Retric
<http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html>

$50 per user per year after trial

 __* The 99.9% uptime SLA for Google Apps is offered to organisations using
Google Apps Premier Edition, as described in the Google Apps Premier Edition
Terms of Service.

~~~
thras
Interesting. Because when we were looking at signing up for the university
version of Google Apps, they expected us to do our own tech support. Is it
different for the corporate version?

------
onreact-com
This does not mean you can rely on Gmail now. Remember the recent downtimes. I
use Gmail only as a secondary tool, relying on my own domain for business
email and using another free email service.

------
vermontdevil
Breaking news?

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rjurney
This seems totally reckless to me. Google is out of control!

~~~
rjurney
You guys have no sense of humor.

~~~
rjurney
Alright. Feed me the bad karma. I still think its funny.

Here's the joke, in case you didn't get it: "Releasing from beta after many
years could not possibly be reckless, therefore saying that it is in an
alarming manner is a HA HA funny time joke."

~~~
philwelch
It may be funny, but it doesn't add much of anything to the conversation.

It's a rare joke that gets upmodded around here, but if it happens, it happens
because it's also insightful and reveals something novel. There's nothing
"novel" about "Google takes a long time to take things out of beta", which is
why it's neither a good joke nor a good HN comment. In contrast, Paul Graham
says a lot of funny things without even consciously trying because his essays
are usually insightful enough to stumble across some surprising truths.

Also, complaints about being downmodded are usually, in turn, downmodded
themselves. It's like a bottomless pit of negative karma for narcissists who
care too much about the value of some integer on the YC webserver :)

EDIT: I'm not exceptionally interested in debating this. You seemed to not
understand why you were modded down, and I explained.I don't really know you
and have nothing against you, so I'm sorry if this seemed personal or hurtful.

~~~
rjurney
As to jokes: I disagree fundamentally. This is a silly little article anyway.
I come out about even on jokes karma wise. You know whats worse than a bad
joke though? PG ass kissing ;)

Anyway, of course I knew I'd get more bad karma. I tend to enjoy it once in a
while.

~~~
marze
It is silly because beta/no beta is a binary decision, and the actual beta-
ness of a product is a scaler.

So today they decide it has passed some arbitrary beta-ness threshold and the
label goes away.

This and the fact it took five years with millions of happy users, all you can
do is joke about it. Totally meaningless otherwise.

~~~
rjurney
Thank you. This is a non-event. At least someone gets that and isn't looking
for a 'profound analysis.'

False profundity makes for some of the worst comments.

