How Google Ruined Beta Software
In: Technology
29 Oct 2009There was a time when I cold called software companies asking to try beta software. To date these events, the ones that accepted usually sent me their software on 3.5” floppy disks. It’s been quite awhile.
The internet made getting beta software a lot easier, downloading it is quick and painless, but it also came with a serious setback. The original concept of beta software was to get it in the hands of real users, let them test it, use their feedback and then incorporate it into the eventual shipping release.
The key differentiating factor was that no one in their right mind would use beta software in a production environment or as an application that held any sort of critical information.
The .com bubble burst this philosophy and sites of all kinds came out in beta and attracted millions of users. No offender of this was worse than Google and specifically Gmail.
Now Google will make the argument that they have finally left the beta phase that they stayed in for literally years, but recent mishaps of data security would leave one room to argue that there are still some major bugs in the works and using it for anything mission critical or with sensitive information is clearly a problem.
Google seems to be getting smarter by really clamping down on invites to new features like Google Voice and Google Wave, but my question still remains. Is the concept of Beta software too watered down now? Do users see it as potentially unstable software that should not be used to hold any information that is mission critical or sensitive in nature?
Thoughts?
Comment Form
About this blog
Jason Burns is a technology enthusiast, Microsoft guy, photographer, musician and all around geek. This blog is the general rambling one, check out the links for the specific ones!
Photostream
Categories
- All News (36)
- Entertainment (2)
- Gaming (28)
- Humor (12)
- Music (40)
- Online (63)
- Photography (21)
- Politics (1)
- Random (512)
- Sports (3)
- Technology (179)
- Web Authoring (16)
Archives
Friends' Blogs
Links To Me
Reading
- CMD: Nope I don't think it's overkill, I can't rest easy until my important data is in three places at on [...]
- Arnan: TV? That's a video signal with static in it right? [...]
- Jason Levandoski: Wait, so you tell us "This process will differ a little bit depending on which OS you are making the [...]
- Laura: AM DOWNLOADING THIS ATM, SEEMS OK SO FAR, THOUGH DOES TAKE A WHILE. I HOPE IT DOESNT CHARGE AFTER A [...]
- Julia Mason: those who are in the graphics business could never live without Adobe Photoshop.";, [...]
- Social Network Tip #112: never delete your social network accounts
- Silverkeeper for Mac and PC Unity
- Is Cable TV on Life Support?
- Yes I Still Blog!
- Sorting Out Multiple Monitors, Color Profiles and the like
- Ignore People – or making the most of social networks
- iPhone Rant, entitled: and what’s more…
- Get DVDs onto your iPad Free and Easy
- The Philocast HD – Using the iPad as a Control Surface for Logic Studio
- An open letter to the Linux community about customers
Create Your Badge
5 Responses to How Google Ruined Beta Software
Divorce Lawyer Austin
October 29th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
I think launching a beta product before the final version is a good thing for software companies it helps the developers discovers glitches to their product and in return can generate a buzz about the brand, just like windows 7 many positive reviews came out even though it was just on beta months ago.
Jason Burns
October 29th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Of course Beta is a good thing, the problem is when you build a significant customer base using Beta software in a production setting. With the Windows 7 thing, there was no upgrade from Beta to RTM, it was clear that it was test software, not to be used for anything mission critical.
Tim
November 6th, 2009 at 7:27 am
As far as i have seen Beta..it is made for some experimental s/w for the programmers to understand the disadvantages of the s/w….
designer furniture
Bean Bag
November 9th, 2009 at 8:14 am
I agree with your 1st commenter. It is essential to try and get software into the hands of people who wnat to test it. Ironing out bugs is really important if a piece of software is to succeed. Far too often I have tested stuff out and watched my computer crash.
Getting this right before it is launched to the masses is critical.
Steven Hart
November 12th, 2009 at 7:52 am
Apart from everything the others have said, Beta Versions are a great marketing tools. You get away with glitches because it’s not a production version. You create a buzz. And if you do have a good/great product, you have a user community thats all ready to buy in