Google Apps bids farewell to BETA - Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Talk graduate out of BETA.

Today Google apps, one of the popular free web application suite out there, has dropped “BETA” from its name. Google Apps such as Gmail, Calendar , Doc & Talk will all sport a new logo without BETA starting today. Most popular application Gmail had BETA tag for almost 5 years since its “invitation only beta” release.

In software development, applications go through multiple test cycles, Alpha - internal testing with in the company and Beta release - testing by extended community. Google apps retained “BETA” for so long primarily due to the nature of rollout of new features almost on a weekly / monthly basis. Unlike traditional desktop applications , introduction of new features/updates to web apps is much easier and transparent to end users.

Now that Google apps adoption has extended well beyond typical “BETA” users and considerable amount of features/updates have been introduced , Google have decided to let go off BETA. This move also could be viewed as a expansion of these products reach into enterprise customers - for whom “BETA” is a NO NO.

Let us see if this “drop” leads to “upside” in Google’s bottom-line.

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